The Phantom Isles

by Stephen Alter

Overview

When three sixth-graders break into the town library to read aloud from a book of sorcery, little do they know they are about to raise the dead. The spirits they conjure are trapped within the pages of library books, and must now rely on the children and their determined librarian to set them free.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781599908168
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/10/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	10 Years

About the Author

Stephen Alter was raised in India. The author of seven books for adults, he is the former Writer-in-Residence in Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT, and a recipient of a Fulbright grant. Island of the Phantoms is his first book for children. He currently lives in India with his wife, where he is researching his newest book for adults - a behind the scenes look at the world of Bollywood.

Editorial Reviews

Middle-schoolers Courtney, Orion and Ming accidentally raise the long-dead spirits of Phantom Islanders entrapped by an early 20th-century scientist and carried away from their Indian Ocean home to Carville, Mass., where they've been hidden in books in the library's basement stacks. From the opening midnight break-in through the book-burning demonstration to the final hurried release of the captives, Alter sustains the suspense of this engaging ghost story. Although firmly set in a modern-day world with computers, copiers and sterile nursing homes, this has the air of an old-fashioned adventure, in which determined children, with the help of a sympathetic librarian, right an ancient wrong. Side stories of some of the spirits introduce the reader to their lost tropical world, an idyllic place populated by shipwreck survivors from around the globe. The pressure of Orion and Ming's determinedly positive sixth-grade teacher's efforts to ban books with unhappy endings adds humor as well as tension, allowing the librarian to remind readers of the importance of freedom of choice. Fresh and familiar-an entertaining read. (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews

[T]his has the air of an old-fashioned adventure. …an entertaining read.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[A] memorable ghost story…lovers of atmospheric chills will embrace this tasteful bit of haunting.” —Publishers Weekly

“The Phantom Isles is creative and visually appealing, with stories within stories and images of arora watermarked on its pages. Told from several points of view, including the spirits trapped within the pages of obscure texts, The Phantom Isles succeeds as an entertaining, informative and engaging novel. ” —KidsReads.com and TeenReads.com

“It's the fun kind of scary book that is a great story for anyone. It also seems like just the kind of book that parents could read to their kids.” —TeensReadToo.com

“The Phantom Isles by Stephen Alter has what it takes to become a children's classic, imbued with the type of found in other great children's literature like the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, or the books of Roald Dahl, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and The Fantastic Mister Fox” —CurledUp.com

“This unique story is sure to catch the attention of even the most skeptical and dismissive of readers. …[C]ompletely engrossing and thoroughly satisfying right to the very last page.” —Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Review

From the Publisher