Mary Underwater

Inspired by Joan of Arc, a girl builds and pilots a submarine to prove just what girls can do in this masterful middle-grade debut Fourteen-year-old Mary Murphy talks to Joan of Arc, is failing science, and might lose her scholarship to her Catholic school, Our Lady Star of the Sea. Her father wants to send her away to live with an aunt she barely knows, and a lurking social worker is suspicious of Mary's latest black eye. But Mary doesn't want to be a victim anymore.

Gaining courage from her heroine, Joan of Arc, she decides to build a real submarine like the model she's been making with the class clown-who seems to be developing a serious crush on her. With her father returning home soon from his latest stint in jail, Mary decides she will pilot her homemade, propane-tank submarine across the Chesapeake Bay, risking her life in a modern crusade to prove what girls can do.