The Phantom Isles [Hardcover]

Stephen Alter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 23, 2007 | Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

The book is called The Compleat Necromancer, and when Ming, Orion, and Courtney read an incantation from its pages, they have no way of knowing they are about to conjure up the ghosts of an entire nation. Because the ghosts that the three friends summon aren't just any ghosts. They were captured from an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean--the Ilhas dos Fantasmas--a place where the living and the dead once coexisted peacefully. Now confined to the pages of a few dozen library books in a New England town that's thousands of miles from their home, the ghosts must rely on the children and a determined librarian to free them before they are lost forever.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 4–6—When three New England sixth graders discover ghosts hidden inside books in their local public library, they enlist the help of the librarian and unravel the means by which the spirits were trapped. An evil scientist imprisoned them in the early 1900s on a fictional island in the Indian Ocean, and then brought the books to New England, where they were donated to the library upon his death. Several halftone illustrations appear in the section in which the ghosts are first introduced, giving the look of a face peering out from the text, which adds a creepy touch. The subplot involves the children's censorship-happy teacher who wants all unpleasant books removed from the library. While based on an interesting concept, the story is riddled with confusing touches. The ghosts speak English backwards, but are from an island where it is not spoken. One of the books involved contains a reference to nuclear weapons, but it would have been published in the 1930s at the latest. A laugh-out-loud-funny joke requires an understanding of Voltaire's Candide. Flashbacks to the deaths of the spirits are included in the text and are occasionally brutal, though not graphic. The use of present tense to tell their backstories yields fairly confusing results. While there is an inclination to advocate for a book that has a strong anticensorship librarian as a main character, this book misses the mark.—Kristin Anderson, Columbus Metropolitan Library System, OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Sixth-grade-classmates Courtney, Orion, and Ming break into the public library one night, find he Compleat Necromancer, and recite an incantation that signals the beginning of a strange adventure. Soon they discover ghosts captured years before on the island of Prithvideep in the Indian Ocean and now magically confined as moving images within the pages of books. The plot thickens as the children's book-banning teacher threatens to shut down the public library for exposing kids to unsavory tomes such as "biographies of criminals and thugs" and "scientific theories that haven't been proven." The librarian soon becomes the trio's ally in researching the history of events on Prithvideep and trying to free the spirits trapped in the books. Though readers may find the telling of events on Prithvideep many years ago less involving than the contemporary story, the background does give this fantasy an unusual dimension. The text is occasionally superimposed on a ghostly visage, simulating what the characters saw when they discovered the enchanted spirits trapped in the library books. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 244 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens; 1st edition (January 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582347387
• ISBN-13: 978-1582347387
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,849,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, March 8, 2007

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Phantom Isles (Hardcover)

Late one night Ming, Courtney, and Orion sneak into the town library to find a very curious book. The Compleat Necromancer contains a spell that can supposedly conjure the ghosts of the dead. The friends perform the spell and...nothing happens. Or so it seems.

The next day Alma, the librarian, notices books out of place. Stranger still is the face that looks out at her when she opens one of them. It seems to materialize on the page, and it appears to be looking right at her! And it's not the only face stuck in a book.

Slowly a mystery comes to the surface. It seems to center around a place called Ilhas dos Fantasmas, and a professor who went to live there for awhile a long time ago. If Ming, Courtney, Orion, and Alma can solve the mystery, they might be able to free the ghosts from their books. But, the clock is ticking, and the books might be in greater danger than any of them realize.

This is such a fun book, and such an original idea! I love that it tells the stories of the ghosts, as well as has their faces on the page. It makes the story so much more vivid. Plus it has a crazy teacher, who at first is almost funny then turns creepy. It's the fun kind of scary book that is a great story for anyone. It also seems like just the kind of book that parents could read to their kids.

Reviewed by: Carrie Spellman

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative and visually appealing,, June 1, 2007

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Phantom Isles (Hardcover)

Middle-school students Courtney, Ming and Orion break into the Carville, Massachusetts Public Library one late spring night. Inside the library's "granite walls, cast-iron grilles, and turreted roof that made it look like a fortress," the children huddle in the cavern-like basement. Under the beam of Orion's flashlight, they recite an incantation from THE COMPLEAT NECROMANCER, an aged book written by former Carville resident Professor Hezekiah T. Osgood, who is now deceased.

Hezekiah, his wife Clara and son Nichodemus spent many years on Ilhas dos Fantasmas --- also known as Prithvideep --- an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, south of the Equator. There, Hezekiah and his family learned about the arora --- spirits that haunted the islands.

THE COMPLEAT NECROMANCER is an ordinary-looking book, "old and heavy as a brick," which chronicles Hezekiah's investigation into the mysteries of the afterlife. According to the book, "three friends must gather in the darkness and conspire to raise the dead." After Courtney, Ming and Orion repeat the incantation, they believe nothing has happened. They scamper from the library, forgetting Orion's flashlight in their haste.

The next morning Alma Parker, the town's librarian, finds the flashlight and notices something else amiss --- and it's not just the books that are out of place. After Alma picks up a book that is also part of the Osgood collection, she sees the profile of a boy pressed between the pages. It is "a filmy, translucent layer...as if traced by air." The image moves and looks at her.

While reading in her bedroom, Courtney also discovers the image of someone moving between the pages of a book "like the pale outline of a fern that might have been pressed inside the book long ago."

Back in school, Ming and Orion are assigned to create a presentation for the Carville World's Fair social studies project. Their teacher, Mrs. Hokum, has a vendetta against Alma Parker and a long list of books she wants banned from the library. Ming and Orion select Ilhas dos Fantasmas as the country for their project. Mrs. Hokum reluctantly approves their selection, but she remains suspicious and continues her campaign to ban "negative" books from the library and remove Alma Parker as librarian.

Joining forces with Alma and her husband, Ted, the three youngsters attempt to rescue the trapped arora while trying to protect the library's books from Mrs. Hokum and her supporters.

THE PHANTOM ISLES is creative and visually appealing, with stories within stories and images of arora watermarked on its pages. Told from several points of view, including the spirits trapped within the pages of obscure texts, THE PHANTOM ISLES succeeds as an entertaining, informative and engaging novel.

--- Reviewed by Donna Volkenannt

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Phantom Isles, April 1, 2007

By 

Frances Alter "The land down under" (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Phantom Isles (Hardcover)

I recently bought this book for my nephew who is eleven and an avid reader. He tells me that not only did he love this book but it has inspired him to become a writer in the future. He has shared it with his teacher and classmates at school and it seems that they have all enjoyed it. I am looking forward to reading it now myself.