A -ful Review of Island of Stars

Thoughtful and truthful and can you be enthusiastic-ful?

Island of Stars is a middle-grade adventure book written by Carrie Brownell, and which I read over a few weeks while Decklan was at soccer practice. I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I want to talk about it. But here’s the thing: I know Carrie personally, mostly through mutual friends and occasional Facebook interactions. Years ago, she reviewed my novel, The Fellowship, at my request—even though it was not the kind of book she wanted to read. Obviously this makes it a little touchy for me to talk about her book, especially since she never asked me to.

However, when talking about books I’ve read, I ignore the author as much as I can. I rarely look up extra information for context; I prefer to take from the book itself. That’s what I did here. As much as possible, I put Carrie out of my mind¹ and judged the book from what I found in it. And I want to talk about it, which I will now do in a thoughtful and truthful and enthusiastic-ful way.

The story is about three children who go with their scientist parents on an expedition to a mysterious island. The ship is an old-fashioned sailing ship, and strongly suggested to be a ghost ship—promising start! Then they arrive at the island, which the captain admits is prone to, you know, disappear occasionally. Another point in favor of this adventure! As for the island itself, it’s exactly the kind of place that a kid wants to visit. They get up when they want to, eat when they want to, and spend every wide-open day doing what they want to. They’re allowed free rein to explore its beaches and caves and waterfalls (that they can go behind!).

Not only that, but they discover hidden mechanisms that reveal doors in trees, false walls behind waterfalls, staircases cut into the walls of caves, and—best adventure of all—magic.

All the gold stars go to this book for not pulling a midcentury modern reveal of “There was nothing supernatural after all!” (ahem, Scooby-Doo, Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew). The hints of magic completely follow through. They discover a pool of dancing lights that turns out to be a storehouse of magical fallen stars. Furthermore, it’s guarded by a merman.

I’ll pause here, before any more spoilers. The story is a lot of fun, although the book is over-written (the sentence, “She nodded in affirmation to show comprehension” instead of “She nodded” is a good example). I’d rate it 3.5 stars about of 5—and remember that all of those stars are gold ones because the magic is real and the adventure is fun.

As for the not-quite-4-star rating (I rarely rate anything 5), I discuss my thoughts more fully below. Here on out, there are big spoilers.

Having met the merman, the children learn that there’s a lot more afoot on the island than they realized. The merpeople who inhabit the sea around the island keep watch over these fallen stars, which grant immortality (or at least a very long life) to whoever has one. This longevity isn't presented as a good effect, especially not for humans. Man’s glory, says Arran the merman, is to live one life well — not many lives in greedy pursuit of power or out of fear. The children discovered the secret of the stars not because they are more pure, but because as children they don’t have a sense of their own mortality yet and are therefore less likely to be tempted to steal a star.

Arran tells them that one of their own party possesses one of these stars, and charges them to bring it back to him. They immediately know who the culprit is. One mysterious man has threatened the children already, following them around the island, forcing them to reveal one of the secret doors, and warning them that if they tell their parents about it, he’ll make the whole island disappear forever.

But. It turns out that this man is Sir Francis Drake — yes, that Drake. (You have to know who Drake is, and already have some kind of reverence or affection for him, for the rest of the story to work.) He reveals to the children that the merpeople held him captive for years, so he knows how they really are, and how they really are is bad. His mission is to destroy all the stars in their possession so they can’t have immortality.

That’s how it all plays out. With the children’s help, as well as the adults once they’re let in on the secret, Drake recovers all of the magical stars. Then he, the ship’s captain, and the half-life ghost crew sail away in the ghost ship with all of the magic stars and disappear into a maelstrom. Everyone else returns home after the best summer adventure ever.

This book never ran out of story, which I loved. Even when we get to the halfway point, where Arran answers a lot of big questions, there are a few more twists in store. It’s the kind of story that twelve-year-old me would have revisited many many times.

Three things kept me from rating it higher than 3.5.

Firstly, me and my twelve-year-old self sighed when we realized that we were reading an adventure story from the perspective of a boy. Bert and Betty are twins, and their friend Cecily is the same age. Why, of all three, do we follow only Bert’s inner journey? Why do Betty and Cecily give way to him in most decisions? Why must Betty cry at the thought of bats and shiver at danger, when Bert can steel himself to meet any challenge? It was overly familiar and tiresome—especially since Betty and Cecily were written in a way that they easily could have had equal footing in the adventure. As a young girl who turned sticks into swords and scouted out secret hideaways around our creek, I would have welcomed a story where a girl didn’t worry about how she looked or whether she was “as good as” a boy. She just had an adventure with her friends. It seemed like such a missed opportunity, and I was disappointed.

Secondly, this book’s story and theme were interesting, but the more I thought about it, the less sure I was that I agreed with it. As soon as we find out who Drake really is, he becomes a hero. Never mind that he, not Arran, scared and threatened the children before. Never mind that, as a pirate of old, he routinely attacked and killed people for his own and his country’s gain. Never mind that the conflict between the merpeople and Drake is centuries old, and the kids aren’t really informed enough to be involved. No, Drake’s perspective is now the right one. Because he says so, the merpeople’s storehouse of stars must be destroyed. Not only that, but Drake assumes that the children will help him kill Arran. (Arran does indeed die, but fortunately not by the children’s hands.) I agree that immortality probably wouldn’t be good for humans, but I don’t know anything about merpeople. Maybe it’s fine for them, or maybe not, but we didn’t get any more exploration of that subject. Instead, we have to agree with the book and help Drake ruin an entire people’s way of life (without warning), just because he said so.

Thirdly—and I think this affects the previous point—this book needed to be shorter. Not the story, which was beautifully paced. But the book itself had too many words. If it had been trimmed to about half of its wordcount, then a lot of repetition and fluff would have been cut out, leaving more room to develop second half of the story. Perhaps I’d still disagree with the story and theme, but at least I wouldn’t feel like the children had been used as pawns in Drake’s centuries-old revenge plot.

Overall, this story is a grand summer adventure with hideaways, magic, and mysteries. A child who is an avid reader probably wouldn’t mind most of the stuff I mentioned (although I still think most girls would sigh within their souls that they don’t get to helm the adventure). A slower reader might find it harder to get through such a long book. And as a parent, I’d definitely want to have a discussion about how everything played out by the end.

And finally, I hope that Carrie writes more books.

1. This is similar to “The Death of the Author” principle, an idea which comes from a 1967 essay by Roland Barthes; he argues that the meaning of a text is not determined by the author’s intention, but rather by the reader’s interpretation. In this case, my understanding of the story is based on what’s written in the book, not anything I know about Carrie personally. Besides, I don’t wish death on this author. We’ll just assume she’s taking a really good nap.