Review by Booklist Review
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 Odean
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Whitbread winner Morpurgo (Waiting for Anya) tries his hand at high-seas action in this tale of a 12-year-old who washes up on a tiny island in the Pacific in 1988. When the brickworks that employs Mike's parents closes, Mike's father comes up with a novel idea: he invests the family's life savings in a sailboat and hires someone to train the three of them to operate the boat. Before long Mike and his parents, and his faithful dog, Stella, are off on a voyage around the globe. But one night, while alone on deck, Mike falls overboard. After hours in the water and losing consciousness (he dreams someone with strong arms has hauled him to safety), Mike comes to on the shore of an apparently deserted island. Readers hoping for a survival story on the order of Hatchet or Island of the Blue Dolphins instead will find a highly romanticized tale in which a saddened but wise Japanese army doctor, shipwrecked near the end of WWII and unwilling to return home, not only rescues Mike but teaches him to fish, cook and paint ("As I watched [Kensuke painting] I became so engrossed that the failing light of evening always came too soon for me"). The languid descriptions and the clusters of coincidences create the ambience of fantasy; this story reads like a pleasantly extended daydream. Ages 8-12. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 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 dtente 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, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) ""I disappeared on the night before my twelfth birthday. July 28, 1988. Only now can I at last tell the whole extraordinary story, the true story."" Grabbing readers from the very start, this survival story follows British schoolboy Michael and his recently laid-off parents as they decide to sail around the world by yacht. Accompanied by their sheepdog Stella, the family crisscrosses the ocean, stopping at ports of call in Brazil, South Africa, and Australia before the ""dark, dark night"" when Michael and Stella are swept into the Coral Sea. Cast ashore on a remote island, Michael discovers that he and his dog are not alone--an elderly man shares the island with them. ""Kensuke. I, Kensuke. My island,"" the old man proclaims, providing food and water for the castaways, but making it clear that he wants no other contact with Michael. Their relationship changes when Michael is stung by a jellyfish and nursed back to health by Kensuke. As their friendship develops, the old man takes the boy fishing, nurtures his artistic talent (they paint shells with octopus ink), and, in a particularly compelling scene, guides him in protecting the island's orangutans from a boatload of hunters. Michael also learns Kensuke's story: serving as a doctor on a doomed Japanese warship, he sought refuge on the island upon learning of the bombing of Nagasaki, where his family lived. After living alone for over forty years, Kensuke must decide if returning home is even an option. Michael's clear-eyed first-person narrative captures both the drama of surviving on a deserted island, as well as the quietly evolving friendship between these two disparate characters, in a novel that will appeal to fans of Robinson Crusoe and Theodore Taylor's The Cay. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
