Book: Song for a Whale

Well, this is the best of the first four books from the Mark Twain Award list I've read so far.  Song for a Whale​ successfully got me page-turning.

From Goodreads:

The story of a deaf girl's connection to a whale whose song can't be heard by his species, and the journey she takes to help him.

From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she's the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she's not very smart. If you've ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be.

When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Iris understands how he must feel. Then she has an idea: she should invent a way to "sing" to him! But he's three thousand miles away. How will she play her song for him?

There is a couple of reasons why  Song for a Whale does not earn a perfect score from this critic.  First, in the middle of the book, author Lynn Kelly changed the mood of the story.  It was like reading a completely different mood, where suddenly the focus is not on the main character, but on the cruise ship experience.  Second, it just didn't seem like a realistic ending.  I never bought the idea that Iris could create an underwater speaker, with all of its requirements and components, that would work in the manner required.  That's not to mention that everything just comes together, down to the second, in a manner that I just could not believe.

So many of these nominees just fall short in the endings.