So Many Islands

Brand-new fiction, essays, and poems from seventeen island countries around the world.

Those who have been blessed enough to spend time among the St. Lawrence River's Thousand Islands know its breathtaking beauty and will forever speak of their adventure. You'll read about a family's weekend water skiing, swimming, boating, and best of all, being at peace. These colorful illustrations and playful words will allow you to relive old memories and be inspired to create new ones.

In this fast-paced survival story set in Hawaii, electronics fail worldwide, the islands become completely isolated, and a strange starscape fills the sky. Leilani and her father embark on a nightmare odyssey from Oahu to their home on the Big Island. Leilani’s epilepsy holds a clue to the disaster, if only they can survive as the islands revert to earlier ways. A powerful story enriched by fascinating elements of Hawaiian ecology, culture, and warfare, this captivating and dramatic debut from Austin Aslan is the first of two novels. The author has a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology from the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Praise for Islands at the End of the World: “A riveting tale of belonging, family, overcoming perceived limitations, and finding a home.”--School Library Journal, Starred "Aslan’s debut honors Hawaii’s unique cultural strengths--family ties and love of home, amplified by geography and history--while remaining true to a genre that affirms the mysterious grandeur of the universe waiting to be discovered."--Kirkus Reviews, Starred "Aslan’s debut is a riveting tale of belonging, family, overcoming perceived limitations, and finding a home."--School Library Journal, Starred

"An account of Louise Erdrich's trip through the lakes and islands of southern Ontario with her 18-month old baby and the baby's father, an Ojibwe spiritual leader and guide"--

A National Book Award Longlist title! "A wondrous book, wise and wild and deeply true." —Kelly Barnhill, Newbery Medal-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon "This is one of those books that haunts you long after you read it. Thought-provoking and magical." —Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series In the tradition of modern-day classics like Sara Pennypacker's Pax and Lois Lowry's The Giver comes a deep, compelling, heartbreaking, and completely one-of-a-kind novel about nine children who live on a mysterious island. On the island, everything is perfect. The sun rises in a sky filled with dancing shapes; the wind, water, and trees shelter and protect those who live there; when the nine children go to sleep in their cabins, it is with full stomachs and joy in their hearts. And only one thing ever changes: on that day, each year, when a boat appears from the mist upon the ocean carrying one young child to join them—and taking the eldest one away, never to be seen again. Today’s Changing is no different. The boat arrives, taking away Jinny’s best friend, Deen, replacing him with a new little girl named Ess, and leaving Jinny as the new Elder. Jinny knows her responsibility now—to teach Ess everything she needs to know about the island, to keep things as they’ve always been. But will she be ready for the inevitable day when the boat will come back—and take her away forever from the only home she’s known? "A unique and compelling story about nine children who live with no adults on a mysterious island. Anyone who has ever been scared of leaving their family will love this book" (from the Brightly.com review, which named Orphan Island a best book of 2017).

WINNER OF THE 2017 DRUE HEINZ LITERATURE PRIZE Selected by David Gates William Wall is the first international winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. “Suddenly I see weeks that are like years stretch out before me. Islands are, more than anything else, places of deprivation.” Jeannie, one of the sisters featured in The Islands, comes to this realization at the age of six or seven, as her father leaves their island home yet again to work on his latest book. In this collection of interconnected stories, the beautiful and ravaging forces of sea and land collide with the forces of human nature, through isolation and family, love and loss, madness and revelation. The stories follow the lives of two sisters and the people who come and go in their lives, much like the tides. Dominated by the tragic loss of a third sister at a young age, their family spirals out of control. We witness three stages of the sisters’ lives, each taking place on an island—in southwest Ireland, southern England, and the Bay of Naples. Beautifully and sparsely written, the stories deeply evoke landscape and character, and are suffused with a keen eye for detail and metaphor.

The Book Of Islands is an exhilarating journey to some of the most extraordinary and isolated places on earth. From tropical paradises such as Mauritius and Bali, to prison islands like Alcatraz and Robben Island, from the far-flung snowy Kerguelen in Antarctica and Tierra del Fuego at the tip of Latin America to islands in the middle of cities the Ile St-Louis in Paris and Manhattan and those that are cities in their own right, like Venice and Singapore each island has a unique and very distinct character. Included here are places of refuge, escape, exile and mystery the unblinking primitive statues of Easter Island and the dragons of Komodo; islands that have been sanctuaries and monasteries; the homes of hermits, mutineers, emperors and artists; the sites of battles, vendettas and revolutions. Some of the islands featured are under desperate threat from the forces of global warming: rising sea levels and an increase in severe weather conditions. Unless things change dramatically, many of these unique and diverse mini cultures will simply disappear. The Book of Islands presents what could be a last chance to celebrate these diverse and extraordinary places.

Instant New York Times Bestseller Longlisted for Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence 2020 New England Society Book Award Winner for Fiction “The Guest Book is monumental in a way that few novels dare attempt.” —The Washington Post The thought-provoking new novel by New York Times bestselling author Sarah Blake An exquisitely written, poignant family saga that illuminates the great divide, the gulf that separates the rich and poor, black and white, Protestant and Jew. Spanning three generations, The Guest Book deftly examines the life and legacy of one unforgettable family as they navigate the evolving social and political landscape from Crockett’s Island, their family retreat off the coast of Maine. Blake masterfully lays bare the memories and mistakes each generation makes while coming to terms with what it means to inherit the past.