The White Baby
Far away in the Bering Sea, at a place called Novastoshnah, thousands of seals gather every summer. The noise is deafening—roaring, blowing, and fighting for space on the rocky beach. amidst this chaos, Kotick is born.
He is different from every other seal. While they are dark, Kotick is pure white. His mother, Matkah, looks at him closely. "Our baby is going to be white!" she tells his father, the huge and scarred Sea Catch.
Kotick spends his first weeks learning to crawl and avoiding the fights of the big seals. But soon, the most important lesson begins: learning to swim. His mother warns him: "You mustn't swim till you're six weeks old, or your head will be sunk by your heels!"
Kotick stares at the vast, green ocean. It looks scary, but exciting.