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Set in Oceania, this book features a coed group of thirteen kids who eventually find themselves alone in a remote area on an unnamed island nation. Conflicts begin to mount when political unrest in the capital forces the governor’s and chancellor’s families to extend their summer holiday. After the officials, their wives, and an entourage make a sudden return to the city, just fourteen children and a dozen adults remain at the summer villas. There is no word from the capital after a month, but life continues on the estates with the older boys and girls looking after their younger siblings. The daughters of the governor and chancellor, Kris and Jema, are close friends who develop crushes on their childhood companions—Native boys Rangi and Pate. Meanwhile, Caaqi—an enigmatic parrot with mythical and metaphorical importance as a god-like spirit—observes and comments upon the human community.
Fans of Lord of the Flies and Yellowjackets, with their familiar themes of children left stranded to survive without adult guidance, will enjoy Shapero’s novel. The author keeps the tension high with multilayered emotional and physical conflicts and with Caaqi’s commentary. The lyrical prose and exotic setting instill a powerful magnetic aura to the drama, especially in the author’s lush descriptions of the jungle’s natural wonders. But the tropical paradise is shattered when a fire starts in the governor’s villa and spreads to all the dwellings in the community, taking the lives of all the adults and one boy. As the thirteen young survivors face their new status as hunters and gatherers, Shapero graces them with the ability to discover their powerful personal and cultural strengths and limitations along with the joys and sorrows of their newly awakened but unguided sexuality.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review