The Other Side of the Island - Softcover

A popular adult author tries her hand at a dystopian children's novel, with mixed results. In a future where only a few habitable islands remain on waterlogged Earth, ten-year-old Honor lives on Island 365 with her unconventional scientist parents. Though Honor attends a government school that espouses the propaganda of Earth Mother (the environmental version of an Orwellian Big Brother), her parents are part of a whisper campaign against the push to "Enclose" all remaining land to protect it from the wild weather patterns. They also take issue with the ban on any books, music or art that doesn't come from "The Corporation." Eventually Honor's parents are arrested for their radical views and Honor is forced on a quest to the unregulated "other side of the island" to find them. Though Goodman's straightforward and sometimes emotionally distant environmental fable suffers in comparison to similarly themed titles, such as Lowry's subtle Giver (1993) and Westerfeld's exciting Uglies (2007), the simple prose, clear message and timely topic still make this a solid introduction to the genre for middle-grade readers. (Science fiction. 11-14) (Kirkus Reviews)

In the eighteenth glorious year of Enclosure, long after The Flood, a young girl named Honour moves with her parents to Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life on the tropical island is peaceful - there is no sadness and no visible violence in this world. Earth Mother and her Corporation have created New Weather. Sky colour is regulated and it almost never rains. Every family fits into its rightful, orderly, and predictable place...Except Honour's. Her family does not follow the rules. They ignore curfew, sing songs, and do not pray to Earth Mother. Honour doesn't fit in with the other children at the Old Colony School. Then she meets Helix, a boy who slowly helps her uncover a terrible secret about the Island: sooner or later, those who do not fit disappear, and they don't ever come back.