The Lost Island of Tamarind
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Maya Nelson isn't your typical thirteen-year-old. She's spent her whole life living on the sea with her marine biologist parents, her younger brother, Simon, and baby sister, Penny. Maya used to love living on a sailboat, but lately, everything feels terribly claustrophobic. Maya longs to go to school on land. To make friends. To lead a normal life. But when a violent storm hits and Maya's parents are washed overboard, life becomes anything but normal. The children manage to steer the boat toward a mysterious island, to a place that doesn't exist on a map.
Welcome to Tamarind, where fish can fly, pirates patrol the waters, jaguars lurk, the islanders are at war, and an evil, child-stealing enchantress rules the jungle.
Maya never imagined she'd have to face so many dangers. But then, who could have imagined a place like Tamarind. . . .?
In her stunning first novel, Nadia Aguiar presents a heart-pounding adventure tale about a haunting, fantastical island cut off from the outside world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aguiar's exciting debut novel is a cross between Peter Pan and Lost. Thirteen-year-old Maya Nelson is sick of living at sea on the Pamela Jane with her brother, Simon, and baby sister, Penny, while her parents conduct research. After a sudden storm, Maya's parents fall overboard and Maya desperately sails the boat, landing on Tamarind, an island that has been the setting for ongoing stories told by her father and that has been cut off from the outside world. Ruled by pirates and devastated by civil war, the island poses one peril after another. As Maya and Simon hike through dense jungle, tending to Penny, they meet dynamic characters including the orphan Helix, a jaguar-riding child stealer and a girl who looks uncannily like Maya. When pirates kidnap Simon and Penny, Maya must race to find her parents and rescue her siblings. Developed with seeming ease, each new character advances the plot logically and fluidly. The storytelling, intricate as it is, builds to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. All signs point to a sequel one that readers won't want to miss. Ages 10 14.