The collection Krik? Krak!, in which "Children of the Sea" appeared, garnered impressive reviews by critics. The title of the book comes from the Haitian tradition of the storyteller who asks the audience ''Krik?'' to see if anyone wants to hear a story. The reply, "Krak!" indicates that audience's enthusiasm and willingness to listen. In many reviews, "Children of the Sea" has been singled out as one of Danticat's most poignant and effective stones. Like most of her work, it concerns the lives of ordinary Haitians and bears witness to the tragedies she witnessed firsthand as a child living in the country. Danticat tells Renee Shea in Poets and Writers that the story is about the "need to be remembered." Some of the refugees Danticat had spoken with following their arrival in the United States, particularly the women, ''feared that no one would know they had been alive, no one would speak of them" had they drowned in the sea during their voyage.

Joanne Omangin Washington Post Book World calls the story "virtually flawless" and states that "All the island's troubles are braided seamlessly into these letters.'' Likewise, Kimberly Hebert calls it Krik? Krak! 's ''most powerful story'' in a review for Quarterly Black Review. Shea writes in Belles Lettres that the story is ''stunning in the power of both the tale and language." She elaborates that Danticat changed the title to emphasize the Middle Passage of the slave ships and quotes the author: "That journey from Haiti in the 1980s is like a new middle passage.... I often think that if my ancestors are at the bottom of the sea, then I too am a part of that."