When I Find the Ocean (2006)

Twelve-year-old Lily Strickland has lost her father, a sailor, to the sea. She and her mother go to live with her grandparents. Lily and her family have little closure on the death of her father since he was never found, thus Lily sets out alone on a trek to the ocean to find the closure that she needs to heal her loss. Set in 1965 Alabama, during the Civil Rights marches.