Full disclaimer, I do read kids’ books from time to time. Yes, I can read novels with fancy words no problems but especially since my son was born, I find myself diving back into books primarily of the middle school (8-12) age. I try to be a good parent and before I hand over to him a book (especially one that’s longer than a full description of Batman and his lineup of famous villains), I want to know what’s in it. But it’s way more than appropriate content, I want him to appreciate writing by finding great adventure. Today’s review, Garbage Island by Fred Koehler is one of those such books.
The original copy of this review can be found at:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5726095841
First, a great thank you to the author to understand that every wonderful adventure needs a map and this one did not disappoint. It helped set the tone in a fantastic way for the next thirty nine chapters. Garbage Island is the tale of Archibald Shrew, a shrew who is an inventor of many things. Some of these inventions work, and some of them do not. He lives with other rodents, insects and other animals aboard what is known as Garbage Island (based on an unfortunate pile of trash in the Pacific). Most of these other living beings do not like Archibald, it has even been discussed that they should exile him from this very island.
However, there is one creature that keeps the peace on the Island and does his best to keep Archibald out of trouble. His name is Mayor Popli and he is a mouse that governs over the island. Archibald also has a friend in Merri, a small yellow bird who happens to be the only one of her kind that stays with the residents of the island. One day, disaster strikes and the island falls apart. This puts Archibald and Mayor Popli on a floating adventure to other locations, many of which are quite hostile. All in an attempt to get back to their floating colony which has their own problems to deal with. This sets up a finale which leads the way for what should be a sequel in I hope the near future (however, it’s been about five years so I’m not entirely sure if it will have a follow up).
The characters are great in this book. They aren’t all mice or all shrews. We have birds, snakes, dung beetles and spiders along with other creatures of different types. All of which get ample time to shine (or darken) the pages of this novel. Another mark of a great book is that the chapters flow incredibly well here. The plot doesn’t get stalled and we can always see the next course of events in short order. At the same time, I did feel involved in the story and wanting to see what the next page had to offer. Furthermore, the garbage isn’t just a prop or some backdrop, it actually plays a part in many of these events until the conclusion of this novel.
Negatives are hard to find in this book. The characters tend be a bit shallow in their depth but we aren’t talking 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea here, this is intended for eight to twelve year old’s who don’t mind talking animals riding around on pieces of trash in the open sea. It’s a whole lot of fun and the book could be extremely preachy. But it’s not preachy one bit, yes we know that the swirling vortex of consumption out in the Pacific is probably a very bad thing, but this book only concerns us with the imaginative adventure that is taking place. We can escape with the contents of this book for a little bit of time before looking at our Peanut Butter Cookie Larabar wrapping and worrying about how much we contribute to it.
This one gets an easy recommendation from me and will certainly find its way to my son’s bookshelf. Heck, if I wasn’t blessed to have a son, it would go up on my own bookshelf along side Witcher and Shannara novels. It presents a fantastic story and it plays out with a wide variety of characters and incidents. The chapters move along quickly and this is one of those novels that could easily be finished in a weekend (though with my busy schedule, it took a while longer). I can only hope that Fred Koehler decides to take on a sequel as this really shows promise in his first chapter book (he normally does kids’ picture books).
Oh wait, I would be amiss if I did not mention the illustrations in this book. Even though they are black and white, they leave plenty of room for detail and imagination. Kids and adults will find themselves staring at them for minutes on end before they remember that they need to finish that next chapter. Again, I fully enjoy this book and hope that many others will pick it up too. Take care readers.
