I think they will see themselves in it the way I did, in their past, present and future. I think this book will be magical for middle grade readers. Most of the time I don’t do things exactly right or how my mother before me did. Someday, instead of me getting my turn to leave the island, they’re going to leave. I love my Cares, I want to teach them things, I want to protect them.

This is the part that reminded me of myself now. Jinny especially loved so deeply and also had a selfish streak a million miles long. Jinny and her cohorts on the island were perfectly imperfect. I wanted to know things about the island: why they were there? Who created it? How does the magic work? What is going on? But I knew that it would burst my enchanted bubble if I got those answers, so I enjoyed swimming around in the world Laurel Snyder created and just let myself experience it.Īnd it was lovely. I’m far older now than I was when I was reading Lois Lowry for the first time, but this book made me feel like I wasn’t. It brought back memories of me reading THE GIVER for the first time and learning things new for the first time through Jonah and applying this knowledge to my life.

I was transplanted to a magical place and got to live in someone else’s head for a bit.

And this book appealed to me on so many levels, I just had to read it.įrom the beginning, it was everything I wanted it to be. But, I’m a pretty good gauge now of whether or not I’ll like something having been a reader for so long. Which isn’t always the case, sometimes the high expectations can kill something.

So, I pretty much knew I’d love this book before I read it … and I was right. But will she be ready for the inevitable day when the boat will come back-and take her away forever from the only home she’s known? Jinny knows her responsibility now-to teach Ess everything she needs to know about the island, to keep things as they’ve always been. The boat arrives, taking away Jinny’s best friend, Deen, replacing him with a new little girl named Ess, and leaving Jinny as the new Elder. And only one thing ever changes: on that day, each year, when a boat appears from the mist upon the ocean carrying one young child to join them-and taking the eldest one away, never to be seen again. The sun rises in a sky filled with dancing shapes the wind, water, and trees shelter and protect those who live there when the nine children go to sleep in their cabins, it is with full stomachs and joy in their hearts. From acclaimed author Laurel Snyder comes a deep, compelling, heartbreaking, and completely one-of-a-kind novel about nine children who live on a mysterious island.

Orphan island by laurel snyder