From School Library Journal
Grade 4-8-This poignant adventure story begins in England in 1988 and ends halfway around the globe in a place that will change the 11-year-old protagonist forever. After losing his job, Michael's father surprises the family by purchasing a yacht in which they will sail around the world. In the first weeks at sea, Michael, his parents, and his dog, Stella, zigzag from England to Australia and across the Coral Sea, where Michael's reverie comes to a frightening end. In the middle of the night, he and Stella are swept overboard in a fierce storm, and he later awakens on an island beach. The island is a hostile jungle full of howling gibbons, voracious mosquitoes, and brutal heat, all of which challenge his ability to survive. Yet when he finds fresh water and food mysteriously laid out for him each morning, he realizes that he is not alone. He soon comes face-to-face with Kensuke, an old Japanese soldier who cautiously protects Michael in spite of the boy's dogged determination to build a bonfire that will signal potential rescuers, defying Kensuke's wish that the outside world never learn of his existence on the island. For nearly a year, the man and boy help each other, moving from an uneasy d‚tente to a deep friendship. What might have been just a gritty tale of survival evolves into a gentle parable about trust, compassion, love, and hope. This well-crafted story has all the thrills and intrigues of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet (Macmillan, 1986) and Theodore Taylor's The Cay (Avon, 1976), and it will resonate with the same audience.
William McLoughlin, Brookside School, Worthington, OHCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Gr. 4-7. A young boy is stranded on a small island with a man from a much different background who helps him survive. Does this sound like Theodore Taylor's
The Cay (1969)? You bet, but it's also the plot of this highly readable British survival novel. When narrator Michael falls overboard, he ends up on a Pacific island, rescued by Kensuke, an old Japanese man who supplies him with food and water, but from a distance. Although Kensuke's broken English makes him sound uneducated, he was a doctor before he became stranded on the island at the end of World War II. He and Michael eventually forge a friendship in which Kensuke teaches the boy both survival skills and Japanese painting. Morpurgo avoids the stereotypes that characterize Taylor's novel, focusing, instead, on developing a touching relationship between Kensuke, who has been without human company for 40 years, and Michael, who learns to love the old man yet still longs for home. The end is bittersweet but believable, and the epilogue is a sad commentary on the long-lasting effects of war.
Kathleen OdeanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
