In 2017, the book was adapted into an audio play by Ian McMillan, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in four half-hour parts.

They bully him due to his age, his accent, his habit of humming London Bridge is Falling Down to get himself to sleep, and for his wicked sea sickness.

Wes, now the boys' heroes because of his blatant defiance, attempts to escape on a horse called Black Jack, but is brought back dead by the bushmen.

It turned out that the bushmen had left them on the doorstep of Aunty Megs, a woman who looks after the orphaned animals of the bush, taking them in like they were her own children.

Soon after nursing her back to health, Arthur and Marty are sent as apprentices to a boat building firm in Sydney by Aunty Megs.

He falls in love with his nurse, Zita, and when he recovers, her father, the Cretan owner of Stavros Boats, gives him permission to marry her.

Sadly, after rounding Cape Horn, she accidentally kills the albatross, as it gets fouled in a fishing line that she is trailing behind the boat.

She attracts the attention of Marc Topolski, an American astronaut on board the International Space Station (ISS).

[1] Secondly, Morpurgo tells the story of when his Australian friend Alex Whitworth and his mate Peter Crozier, sailed around the world in their first circumnavigation.

[2] Morpurgo says the "extraordinary communication" that took place between astronaut Leroy Chiao, the commander of Expedition 10, and Whitworth and Crozier, "fired up his imagination".

[7] Clare Kennedy from Reading Time wrote that it is a "emotionally charged novel, and the two parts of the novel are really about the lives of two or maybe three generations of one family, with their roots in England, Australia and Greece".

[1] Jennifer Taylor of The Bookseller noted that "as so often with Morpurgo, the perspective added by the framing of the narrative adds great poignancy".

[8] In her review for The Observer, Kate Kellaway said it was his "best book in years", and she also remarked that she "read the yarn aloud to my children, unsure whether it might prove too sophisticated, but they were completely hooked, as was I, for the length of the voyage".

[9] British writer Julia Eccleshare opined that the "two overlapping stories shot through with sea themes capture the heartbreak and happiness of childhood".

[11] In 2017, the book was adapted into an audio play by Ian McMillan, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in four half-hour parts.

[12] It also featured original music from British folk singers, including; Julie Matthews and Chris While, Boo Hewerdine and Jez Lowe.

[13] Charlotte Runcie of The Daily Telegraph wrote "this is a moving and evocative first-time dramatisation, and like many other Morpurgo adaptations, also includes traditional music to great effect".