Tree Castle Island - Hardcover

George, Jean Craighead

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060002549 ISBN 13: 9780060002541

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books, 2002

Synopsis

Fourteen-year-old Jack sets out in a handmade canoe for the legendary Okefenokee Swamp. But after several idyllic days of exploring, he's hit with some bad luck. He can't find his way home, and he runs into a hungry alligator who takes a bite out of his canoe. When he pulls up to a remote island, he finds another surprise: a mystery that will reach far into his own past . . . and force him to question the world he's left behind.

About this title

About the Author:

Jean Craighead George wrote over one hundred books for children and young adults. Her novel Julie of the Wolves won the Newbery Medal in 1973, and she received a 1960 Newbery Honor for My Side of the Mountain. She continued to write acclaimed picture books that celebrate the natural world. Her other books with Wendell Minor include The Wolves Are Back; Luck; Everglades; Arctic Son; Morning, Noon, and Night; and Galapagos George.

From Publishers Weekly:

Combining survival tale, nature study, mystery and legend, Newbery Medalist George (Julie of the Wolves) serves up an ultimately unsatisfying stew. While his parents vacation in Europe, 13-year-old Jack, the narrator, stays on his Uncle Hamp's farm on the St. Mary's River in Georgia. Hamp goes off to help a neighbor for at least a week or two... maybe more, and Jack decides the time is ripe to paddle his homemade canoe to the source of St. Mary's, the great Okefenokee Swamp, and search for the fabled Paradise Island. That Paradise, Jack muses, is a fantasy for most people [but] Uncle Hamp says it's part of a human quest for discovery. When an alligator tears a hole in Jack's canoe, the boy finds himself stranded on a small island, where he becomes acquainted with the wildlife and vegetation, builds himself shelter and forages for food. While George demonstrates her expertise as a naturalist, she relaxes the pacing to such an extent that almost no tension remains in the narrative. Jack, underdeveloped as a character, approaches his adventure with matter-of-fact calm. A puzzle emerges when Jack finds an Airedale that looks just like his own dog, answers to the same name and turns out to belong to another boy, an explorer like Jack, who is revealed to be Jack's identical twin, separated at birth. The factual descriptions of the swamp habitat and the fantastic elements of the plot cancel each other out, collapsing the quasi-mythic underpinnings of this quest for discovery. Final artwork, by George, not seen by PW. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0060002549
• ISBN 13: 9780060002541
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256