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School Library Journal
Reviewed on October 1, 2008
Gr 7-10 In this first novel for young people set outside of Discworld, Pratchett again shows his humor and humanity. Worlds are destroyed and cultures collide when a tsunami hits islands in a vast ocean much like the Pacific. Mau, a boy on his way back home from his initiation period and ready for the ritual that will make him a man, is the only one of his people, the Nation, to survive. Ermintrude, a girl from somewhere like Britain in a time like the 19th century, is on he...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Horn Book Magazine
Reviewed on September 1, 2008
Two civilizations meet when a tsunami shipwrecks an English vessel on a small tropical island. Representing the empire is the sole survivor of the wreck, the young girl Ermintrude. She meets Mau, a boy on the brink of manhood, and the only survivor of the island's "nation." All the attractions of a castaway story are here—including an ingenious use of found materials, exotic plants and animals, nature's violence, really bad bad guys, and a single footprint in the sand—but this story holds far mo...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Horn Book Guide
Reviewed on January 1, 2008
A tsunami shipwrecks Ermintrude on a tropical island. There she meets Mau, the only survivor of the island's "nation." The his...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Junior Library Guild
Reviewed on November 1, 2008
From Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island to Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins, islands have a special place in the literary imagination. They represent domains small and self-contained enough to be home to entirely new ways of life. Terry Pratchett presents a Victorian iteration of this theme in his fascinating tale of island adv...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
