[5DU]⇒ [PDF] Gratis The Island of Beyond Elizabeth Atkinson 9781467781169 Books

The Island of Beyond Elizabeth Atkinson 9781467781169 Books

Download As PDF : The Island of Beyond Elizabeth Atkinson 9781467781169 Books

The Island of Beyond Elizabeth Atkinson 9781467781169 Books

Having read all of Ms. Atkinson's books, I am always impressed by how well she knows and understands her middle-grade audience. Her books consistently show a rich yet appropriate vocabulary and give plenty to talk about both at home and in the classroom. This book should certainly be on all the summer reading lists. Bravo Ms. Atkinson!


Tags : The Island of Beyond [Elizabeth Atkinson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Eleven-year-old Martin can hardly imagine a worse summer. Martin's dad wants him to like "normal" boy things playing sports and exploring the outdoors so he sends Martin to his great-aunt Lenore,Elizabeth Atkinson,The Island of Beyond,Carolrhoda Books,1467781169,Social Themes - Friendship,Social Themes - Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance,Great-aunts,Great-aunts;Fiction.,Islands,Islands;Fiction.,Secrecy,Secrets,Secrets;Fiction.,CHILDREN'S FICTION GENERAL,Children's BooksAll Ages,Children: Grades 4-6,JUVENILE,JUVENILE FICTION Social Themes Friendship,JUVENILE FICTION Social Themes Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance,Juvenile Fiction,Juvenile Grades 4-6 Ages 9-11,Monograph Series, any,Social Issues; Early Adolescence; Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance; Novels; Middle-Grade Novel; Fiction; Friends and Family; Wilderness; Country Life; Outdoors; Middle-Grade Novels; Middle-Grade Fiction; Friends; Self-discovery; Mysteries; Friendship; Fiction - Middle Grade; Family; Homosexuality; Elizabeth Atkinson; Secrets; Lifestyles; Adventure; Island; novel; English; Intermediate Readers,United States

The Island of Beyond Elizabeth Atkinson 9781467781169 Books Reviews

Picked this book up at a local coffee shop in their donated books as the cover caught my eye. Im a 35 yr old married woman who has not read books until the last few years and still struggles to get into a book unless it has “me”. I can say that I do work FT and in last 48hoirs I finished it bc my time home I couldnt put it down! It kept me wanting to know more and know what was happening and then towards the end a wow moment that made me say this is a special book people need to know about!!!
Elizabeth Atkinson’s wide and varied background as a children’s librarian, English teacher and fiction writer, among other worthwhile pursuits, has placed her in an ideal position to be the outstanding author of children’s fiction that she is today. Her latest offering in this genre is The Island of Beyond, which tells of an IT savvy, but otherwise socially inept, eleven-year-old boy, Martin, who is sent to live with his great-aunt in Maine for a month during the school vacation.

As with her many other works for children of this age, including The Sugar Mountain Snow Ball and I, Emma Freke, Atkinson’s intimate knowledge of the middle schooler and their needs enables her to empathize with them to such an extent that the reader immediately becomes drawn into both the emotional and the physical surroundings of her protagonist of the moment. It is certain that many a child growing up in the suburbs will be able to relate to Martin’s feelings of social isolation and dysfunctionality that lead him, in an effort to win his parents’ approval, to play with his father’s toy soldiers on which the latter doted in his youth. However, the way in which Martin transforms them into an urban landscape is an indication not only of his seeking to reassure himself with the familiar, but also the narrowness of his own perspective in the opening pages of The Island of Beyond.

Atkinson’s lack of prescriptive gendering and stereotyping is commendable, in that she sees the older generation (in the form of Martin’s parents) as to a certain extent having expectations of Martin as a boy, while, from her authorial perspective, allowing him the freedom to develop in his own way. The marked change in his way of looking at life comes about when he encounters another boy of the same age, appropriately nicknamed Solo, on the island that forms the rustic setting for most of this novel. Solo, growing up in a rural setting, has had the opportunity to become very much more in tune with his environment, in which he is instinctively at ease, than is Martin (whom Solo fittingly and wittily addresses as “Martian”).

Only when Martin encounters the unknown in the backwoods of Maine can he truly come into his own―it comes as little surprise to learn that Atkinson’s familiarity with such a landscape is based, at least in part, on her currently splitting her time between the North Shore of Massachusetts and the western mountains of Maine. The power of questioning, both of self and others, plays a pivotal role in Martin’s increasing self-awareness. He has first to be challenged by Solo and by his great-aunt’s housekeeper/companion to participate in physical activities with which, up to this point, he has not been required to deal, before he can start to explore and understand his place within the wider society and environment. Martin’s relationship with Solo is reminiscent of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer’s interactions with Huckleberry Finn, with the circumscribed conventional being counterpoised to the unconventional and anarchic.

In short, the deeper meaning of this novel is profound, and it deserves a place in modern children’s literature. The major characters are an interesting blend of old and young, so that even an older person should enjoy reading The Island of Beyond, and perhaps recalling their own childhood experiences along the way.
A wonderfully told coming-of-age (mid-age, that is) tale. Martin is a one of those not-so-rambunctious boys who have a hard time fitting in. His way of dealing with it is to spend as much time as possible at home, retreating to a make-believe world of model towns, video games and imaginary friends. When his father decides it would be good for both of them if Martin were to spend a month in the wilds of Maine with an older, possibly demented relative (the father, not a stellar character, has an ulterior motive), the boy is forced out of his comfort zone and made to confront his loneliness and, for the first time, to find his own way in the wider world. Trapped on the island, he finds a way to make friends with the older relative (who is only pretending to be senile, in a delightful sub-plot), and also with a wild and very rambunctious island boy, and in the process finds strengths and resources he didn't know he had.
I've always been an avid reader, and as a "middle grade" reader (somewhat arbitrarily defined by the publishing industry as ages 8 through 12), my tastes tended toward adventure stories, especially those featuring outcast characters caught up in a swirl of mysterious events in exotic settings--like Trixie Belden's search for the mysterious "ghost fish" in THE MYSTERY AT BOB-WHITE CAVE, for instance, or A WRINKLE IN TIME. And then, of course, there's the HARRY POTTER series, the Big Cheese of all outcast adventure stories with an exotic setting. Recently I was lucky enough to pick up THE ISLAND OF BEYOND, Elizabeth Atkinson's brand new middle grade story about Martin, a young boy with various deep-seated fears who takes comfort in his own make-believe worlds. When Martin's conniving, macho dad sends him to his Great Aunt Lenore's Island of Beyond for the summer, supposedly to toughen him up, you know you're in for a great ride. You'll get that ride with all of the requisite page-turning thrills, but there's a tender story lurking just beneath the surface about a young boy finding himself, and discovering all of the different ways there are to love someone. The message is surprising and profound. I adore this book.
It was such an easy read and I've saved it for my 11 year old granddaughter to read.
My grandson liked this book a lot. Lots of action and humor and a touching story. The ending did not feel very complete but besides that a great story
Excellent book, not only for its intended readership, middle-schoolers, but for adults as well. Story unfolds and characters develop in realistic ways. keeping my interest with every page. Not predictable, not saccharine, The Isle of Beyond has this reader wanting to re-read each of Atkinson's books.
Having read all of Ms. Atkinson's books, I am always impressed by how well she knows and understands her middle-grade audience. Her books consistently show a rich yet appropriate vocabulary and give plenty to talk about both at home and in the classroom. This book should certainly be on all the summer reading lists. Bravo Ms. Atkinson!