“House in the Cerulean Sea” by T.J. Klune may not be for everybody, but it is undeniably a social commentary that highlights some of the flaws in our world, both modern and past.
The novel itself is about a man named Linus Baker, who is a bored government official. He works for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (aka DICOMY), and fulfills his duty as a caseworker by going to different DICOMY-run orphanages and evaluating their competence. He has worked for many years determining whether or not these orphanages should continue running, and devotes his life to his work.
At the start of the book, Baker does not stray from the rules, habitually rereading the caseworker rulebook titled “Rules and Regulations,” and goes back to his tiny home at night to his cat and rude neighbor. The only color in his dismal life is found in the small sunflower bed outside his porch. However, once he is specially chosen for a top-secret assessment of a classified orphanage, his life is changed forever by the magical people he meets. His character development is unmatched, and by the end of the book, he is unrecognizable.
The novel’s social commentary makes an appearance once he develops personal relationships with the children and master of the classified orphanage. As he enters their world, he begins to realize just how much prejudice these children are facing. There are signs everywhere in the village near this orphanage stating “See Something, Say Something,” which encourage people to report magical beings to the government so they can be registered and tracked.
From the beginning, beings with magical abilities are kept separate from those of non-magical beings. They are made to feel lesser than. In the village, the children from the classified orphanage are not welcome, which has driven them to stay on the island where the orphanage resides. When they eventually decide to venture to the village, they are met with hate and disgust. This is most likely a commentary on how minorities who are not understood are treated today. Although society has begun fighting even harder for equality, people in the LGBTQ+ community, minority religious groups, minority races (especially African Americans), women, and others still face extreme prejudice around the world.
These fictional children represent children everywhere who are told from the beginning that they are different and will be treated a certain way because of who they are. Luckily for these magical children, the master of their orphanage treats them kindly and teaches them their worth. He teaches them how to be individuals, and that they are more than just their powers. He tells one child, “You are more than just the sum of your parts,” on an almost daily basis. Because of this, the children are able to persevere and stand up for themselves in the village. They know they are not people to be feared, so they are able to calmly show others that too. If we in the real world take that message to heart, we can begin to change some of the prejudices that continue to haunt us. If we start to really instill the idea of equality in our children today, old systems based in discrimination could be destroyed and new ones put in place that do not shame anybody for who they are. That is the true takeaway from the novel “House in the Cerulean Sea” by T.J. Klune.