The Lost Island of Tamarind Nadia Aguiar

from goodreads

4 stars

Well summer is definitely winding down. The weather this week has been cooler, summer outings are becoming less frequent, and the back to school craziness has begun. The kids are also beginning to be a bit restless. I think they are ready to go back to school and make some awesome scholarly discoveries there.

I am also looking forward to the change in season reading wise. I seem to change the types of books I read with the seasons. Summer I prefer something light and fun. Winter I prefer to read more heavy books (literally and figuratively). Not that I am a purist in that regard. It just seems to be how things work out.

My to read in 2015 list is starting to dwindle down. I only have 12 left and three of those are book club reads. I have been reading a lot of books not on the list but I am excited to have made such a significant dent in books I have wanted to read for a long time and now am finally getting to. I am not sure if I will make a list for 2016. Maybe I will, I don't know. Do you ever make lists for a year or do you just read whatever seems to tickle your fancy in the moment?

Synopsis

Maya lives on a boat with her marine biologist parents and her brother Simon and little sister Penny. Maya desperately wants to be a normal teenager, go to a normal school and have friends instead of being on a boat floating around the Caribbean. When a storm comes and settles Maya and her siblings on a strange island Maya has the adventure of her life as she tries to figure out the islands secrets and find her parents again.

My Thoughts

This is one of those book that I just picked up on a whim at the library. The cover kind of intrigued me and I thought why not. I am so glad that I picked it up.

This is a great adventure story. The characters are believable and I even liked them. The island was a great mix of reality and whimsy. The adventures and predicaments the children found themselves in seemed plausible and not so utterly fantastic. It was just a great story.

At first when I found out that Penny, who is like a year old, was going with them on the adventure I was like, man, how are they going to deal with this in a realistic way? Sometimes authors add these elements but then the story goes in a direction where the kids seem almost forgotten and neglected making it not very realistic to life. This author got it bang on. Penny was always part of the mix, was not lost or forgotten and the author showed how they had to deal with the realities of diaper changing and food foraging for her. It was thought out and I really appreciated that.

I think of the older kids and tweens in the crowd who read this will love the sense of adventure, will love the different locations through the island, and will love how the kids are truly the heros and are not just waiting for the adults to come around and save them.

The only thing that prevented me from giving it a full five stars is the flat ending. Not all the questions were answered and it just felt incomplete. Also it was hard for me to figure out if the island was really primitive or had industries. Also, I relied on the map in the front of the book a lot, sometimes things weren't located where I thought they would be on the map and the story and the map didn't always make sense when it came to the distance or sense of things.

There is a second book that I think I will take out and read at some point. Perhaps some of my questions will be answered then.

This book would be great for kids 10 and up. It is just a great adventure.