Meg Rosoff, the 2005 the Printz Award winner for her first novel,How I Live Now has written another winner with her new book, What I Was. In 1960's Britain, an unnamed student at a grim boarding school near the coast discovers an orphan boy named Finn who lives in a hut on the beach and survives with what little he makes from odd jobs yet seems content. The student contrives to spend as much time as he can with Finn who he admires, both for his physical beauty and skills in managing his life without much interference from the outside world. In a surprising twist, the unnamed narrator discovers that he can be strong because he has to be. Rosoff writes poetically of basic human activities like shelling crabs, climbing cliffs and learning to sail, those times that can bring people closer out of necessity.