"Hermosa Has Your Back": A German Author Sets Her Novel on the Strand

Whenever Cornelia Victoria Liberty lands back in Hermosa Beach, she does the same thing first. She walks to the end of the pier, turns around and takes it all in.

"This is where I get the whole picture," she said. "The sunlit houses, the beautiful beach, the beautiful water with the sun rays on it, the surfers in the water, the fishermen next to me and all the people walking up and down the pier."

Liberty, an author from southern Germany, makes the trip at least three times a year. On Oct. 10 she releases The Ocean Within, an illustrated 'magical-realism' novel for readers ages 10 to 14. Its human world is Hermosa Beach. Its illustrations are by her daughter, Katharina.

"Like coming into a movie"

Liberty first came to Hermosa in 2016. Her German nonprofit, Daring Dolphins, was making a short film with children, and the cast was due to rehearse a dance on the beach by the pier.

Her children had just watched La La Land. When the family pulled into the parking lot by the Lighthouse Cafe, where scenes from the film were shot, they went "crazy with joy," she said. "It was really like coming into a movie."

Then they walked down to the pier. "I remember thinking this is the most beautiful place I've ever seen, and I've seen many places in my life," Liberty said. "This is home, this is where I want to be, this is it."

She describes the town as a place that holds you. Sitting on the sand, she looks out past the waves toward the horizon, with Palos Verdes on one side and the Santa Monica Mountains on the other.

"You still feel kind of protected, because it's a little town and you have this bay kind of feeling," she said. "Hermosa has your back, is what it feels like. You are held, you are protected, you are supported, and the world is opening up to you."

She thinks a visitor's eyes help. She notices the strips of grass, the flowers on bushes around the corner, the sound of wind through the palms. "I look at everything with curiosity, so that I really see the beauty in all of it, instead of running by and doing my typical daily rituals."

A girl, a pink dolphin and a grandfather's pendant

The Ocean Within follows Lea, a girl who comes to Hermosa from what Liberty calls "a pretty rigid background, probably like myself." Here she finds the community and the friends she had always wished for.

Lea is grieving her grandfather. She walks the Strand early, when it is nearly empty, with the ocean on one side and the sunlit houses on the other. Passing the surfer statue, she wonders whether the surfer it honors ever felt the ocean calling him the way it calls her.

In the water she meets Fini, a young dolphin who is smaller and pinker than the rest, and far more curious about humans. A magic pendant, handed down from grandparent to grandchild, lets Lea become a dolphin and cross into Fini's world.

The grief is drawn from life. Liberty's father died suddenly when she was 12. "It did shape me and the further path of my life a lot," she said. Lea's grandfather borrows some personality traits from the children's real grandfather, who died when they were little.

Liberty said many people, in Germany and here, push grief aside. "They pretend it hasn't happened, or I give myself two days and then that's it," she said. "If we maybe find another way to deal with it, or to open up about it and support each other with it, we might not feel so alone."

She chose readers ages 10 to 14 because those years are hard enough without loss. Children who face grief alone then, she said, often "fall back into compliance instead of really looking for the uniqueness of themselves."

The pendant is meant to work off the page too. "This is meant as a reminder to even in real life look for magic," she said, "because there's so many magical, surprising moments, so many things we haven't been expecting which may open new doors."

Made together, mostly in Hermosa

Katharina was there that first day in the parking lot, and in the beach film that followed. "For her it was like jumping into a dream life," Liberty said.

She just turned 17 and is spending her senior year as an exchange student at a high school in Santa Monica. The family had hoped to place her closer to Hermosa. "But it's close, right?" her mother said.

Mother and daughter do not create long-distance. They plan to be in the same place, usually Hermosa, then sit on the beach, get a coffee, take a walk and start working.

Katharina drew the illustrations in Germany and in Hermosa, and her mother says it came easily. "She has the pictures just in her head," Liberty said. "She can just pick from the pictures in her brain and then put them to paper. That's really incredible."

Liberty's younger daughter, Victoria, contributed too. The magic pendant was her idea. "She can think creatively out of the box, into the magic," Liberty said.

German bread, Hermosa sunlight

At home, Liberty lives in the Five Lakes area near Munich, a landscape of lakes, forest and the Alps behind them. Hermosa's first surprise is its sheer openness: ocean, horizon, a wide beach. The second is the light.

"The sunlight is so much brighter than in Germany," she said. "Everything seems to be shining. The houses, the colors of the flowers, everything seems to be more intense."

She was struck by how many people are outside and moving, morning and afternoon, from beach volleyball to walks. "It's all generations, and I love that," she said. "You would never see that in Germany."

She finds Hermosa friendlier on first meeting. People greet you and wish you a nice day, while Germans are "more closed, especially to strangers." Real friendship takes longer, she said, and more persistence about keeping plans. "Germans say what they mean and mean what they say. That makes it easier sometimes."

Each visit, she has tried to absorb a little more of the laid-back pace. "A good balance of both is what takes you through life in the best way," she said.

In Hermosa she misses good German bread, which she has not found anywhere yet. In Germany she misses the Pacific, her morning walks on the Strand and "the friendliness of the people, actually."

She would like every child to grow up somewhere like the beach cities. Her other daughter, who lives in the UK, spends much more time indoors because of the weather. "For kids it's the best you can give them," she said, "nature and movement, and letting them follow their curiosity at the beach, in the ocean."

"A place where dreams come true"

The Ocean Within goes on sale Oct. 10 on Amazon, with wider distribution through IngramSpark. On her next trip, Liberty hopes to bring physical copies to local bookstores, libraries, schools and art fairs herself. "It needs me to get in touch with the people," she said.

Liberty said she founded a small publishing house (Uplift Stories Studio) here with a friend to bring inspiring German books to the United States, and American books to Germany.

Daring Dolphins, which she founded, is a registered charity in Germany. It pairs children who have experienced loss, whether through death, divorce, illness or separation, with artists for drawing, theater, writing and filmmaking workshops. She hopes to bring it to the United States next.

A sequel is planned. Liberty wants to set it partly in Hawaii, to explore how Hawaiian communities treat grief. This time Fini will come toward the human world, perhaps visiting Lea's school. It could be in Hermosa again.

Asked what she hopes a Hermosa child feels on finding their town in the book, Liberty said she hopes they know "they live in this most beautiful place," and that children around the world share their questions and their struggles.

She hopes they keep looking for magic. "It may even be the little flower that grows somewhere where you wouldn't expect it," she said, "or the hummingbird that suddenly flies above your head, and the dolphins which play in the ocean while you are outside taking a walk."

And how would she finish the sentence "Hermosa Beach is the place where..."?

"Hermosa Beach is a place where dreams come true," Liberty said. "For me, this is how I see it."

The Ocean Within by Cornelia Victoria Liberty, illustrated by Katharina. Ages 10 to 14. Paperback ISBN 979-8-950826-03-0; eBook ISBN 979-8-950826-30-6. Available Oct. 10. Website link here