Jinny knows her responsibility now-to teach Ess everything she needs to know about the island, to keep things as they’ve always been.īut 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?Īcclaimed author Laurel Snyder returns with a powerful, original, unforgettable story of growing up-the things we fight to hold on to, and the things we struggle to let go. ORPHAN ISLAND, by Laurel Snyder, Walden Pond Press, May 30, 2017, Hardcover, 16. Thats actually pretty much the plot of the story. Jinny, the main character, asks a lot of questions about life. Laurel Snyder is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the author of many books for children, including Bigger than a Breadbox, an ABC Best Books for Children Selection Penny Dreadful, an E.

Its fairly obvious that ORPHAN ISLAND is meant to be absorbed as a metaphor. 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. Snyder has not written a plot-driven book, but a character study about the blurring of lines between childhood and adolescence. 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.Īnd 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.

Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder