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Terry Pratchett
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Book
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Publisher | Doubleday | ||
ISBN | 978-038561370 | ||
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Reviewer
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Ann
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Synopsis
Finding himself alone on a desert island when everything and everyone he knows and loved has been washed away in a huge storm, Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He's also completely alone - or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird and gives him a stick which can make fire. Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She's certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship's parrot. As it happens, they are not alone for long.Other survivors start to arrive to take refuge on the island they all call the Nation and then raiders accompanied by murderous mutineers from the Sweet Judy. Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things - including how to milk a pig and why spitting in beer is a good thing - and start to forge a new Nation. As can be expected from Terry Pratchett, the master story-teller, this new children's novel is both witty and wise, encompassing themes of death and nationhood, while being extremely funny. Mau's ancestors have something to teach us all. Mau just wishes they would shut up about it and let him get on with saving everyone's lives!
Review
A novel for young adults, set in an era comparable perhaps to our Victorian era, this is a moral tale set on a desert island. Following plague and tsunami, two young people from vastly different backgrounds - one a boy from the island just approaching manhood and the other the daughter of a European aristocrat - find themselves abandoned.
Learning to communicate, pooling their resources and experience they manage the basics, and, when more survivors arrive, a community starts to develop. Fighting off obvious threats from pirates and mutineers, and less obvious destruction of their way of life from civilization, the new nation is saved.
As is so often the case with a Pratchett novel there are underlying wider issues, being shaken out for scrutiny. As is said in the author's notes re ‘Thinking', "There is some in this book. Whether you try it at home is up to you."
Touches of the usual Pratchett ingenious humour, curious characters and solutions to problems make this an enjoyable read even for adults, although I was reminded somewhat of an Aesop fable.
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