Orphan Island

By: Laurel Snyder

Narrated by: Kim Mai Guest

A National Book Award Longlist title!

"A wondrous book, wise and wild and deeply true." —Kelly Barnhill, Newbery Medal-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon

"This is one of those books that haunts you long after you read it. Thought-provoking and magical." —Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series

In the tradition of modern-day classics like Sara Pennypacker's Pax and Lois Lowry's The Giver comes a deep, compelling, heartbreaking, and completely one-of-a-kind novel about nine children who live on a mysterious island.

On the island, everything is perfect. 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.

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.

Today’s Changing is no different. 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. Jinny knows her responsibility now—to teach Ess everything she needs to know about the island, to keep things as they’ve always been.

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?

"A unique and compelling story about nine children who live with no adults on a mysterious island. Anyone who has ever been scared of leaving their family will love this book" (from the Brightly.com review, which named Orphan Island a best book of 2017).

©2017 Laurel Snyder (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Fantastic!

Listened ton this with my 10 year old son and we were both enthralled. We finished the book but we are still worried about the characters! The character development was awesome, and the whole concept of the story was great.
It’s really captured our imagination and we’re still talking about and speculating about different aspects of the storyline.

Too slow, no resolution. Ran out of gas.

As many of the reviewers have already said there are too many unanswered questions.
About halfway through the book we were teased with the idea of finding out more about the island, but nothing ever emerged.
The first seven hours of the book were slow paced with nothing concrete ever happening, and the last forty-five minutes felt like an unmotivated writer trying to finish the story with whatever ending she could grab.
I can see the writer staring at her screen trying desperately to think of something, ANYTHING, that could address the mystery of the island, and to salvage some kind of ending, before throwing up her arms in frustration and saying, "screw it, good enough, I'm done".
You have been warned.

AMAZING READER!

The Narrarator was awesome 👌 Awesome story too! OverallI think it was a bit boring but super fun

Awesome story

We hope that this story will have a part two!! Such a great story. My daughters 9 and 10 loved it!

Not my style

I thought the characters were well developed but there were too many unanswered questions for my taste.

A Story About Letting Go

Theres so much to say about this book but I cant find the right words to describe how I feel.

Read it and you will understand.

I think it is very good.

I liked every think about the book and I loved it so so so so so much!

Too many unanswered questions

Overall my 10 yr old daughter thought the story was pretty good. The main character sometimes made her mad, and she found the ending frustrating because there were so many unanswered questions. But the story itself was very interesting and engaging. If the ending had been wrapped up better, she said she would have given it 5 stars

Intriguing but slow

Very thought provoking, interesting book. Beautifully written, well read by narrator. But we found it slow at the end. The protagonist became very tiresome.

So entertaining. So many lessons.

Read this with my 6 and 7 year old boys. They loved it and always asked to continue.