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It is the year 2080 and Dom’s evil, billionaire father Dezi is intent on mining the seabed off the Coromandel, in Aotearoa, a land at the far southern reaches of the planet. The world has been pulled back from climate change devastation and coastal rangers are charged with protecting the fragile marine environment.
Life is high-tech and kids are born with super-powers. Dom is a human chameleon who has to choose between doing the right thing; and protecting his family. Will he cross his terrifying father to save the girl that Dezi Krate has kidnapped?
Bob on Bob's Book Blog wrote:Like other children of his generation, Dom has a special talent chosen by his parents at conception. He is a human chameleon - possessing the ability to blend into any surroundings and become almost invisible. Unfortunately his Anti-Ec father is a mining billionaire set on ignoring new planet-saving laws who kidnaps a young girl, Zoe.
Zoe is a mind-reader and her sisters, who also have remarkable talents, must outwit the ruthless mining billionaire.
Set in a time after the great global Environment Revolution of 2072, readers enter a high-tech world of eco criminals, artificial islands, global warming, rising seas, and patrolling coastal rangers.
Author Carol Garden, a journalist and communications manager, wrote the book during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, her first children's book. It went on to win the Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award 2021 for best novel by an unpublished author.
The accolade is well deserved. While the story's premise seems like a lot for younger readers to take on, Garden builds a fantastic, richly imagined world, using the beautiful islands of the Mercury Bay area as inspiration for the novel's setting.
Garden is sure to make it clear to younger readers that there is hope for our world. While many books that tackle climate change are set in a dystopian future, Kidnap at Mystery Island offers an alternative glimpse at what is possible if we work together.
There's wonderful, strong characters that will have children imagining what their own powers might be. It was refreshing to see girls take centre stage too, leading the rescue instead of being the rescued. We loved the character of Mia, who is incredibly smart, building technology for personal use and for security of their home compound. She breaks the stereotype of girls in tech and will appeal to young readers who share the same interests.
Kidnap at Mystery Island is an impressive fiction debut by Garden. An exciting, action-packed novel that will grip readers from the very first page.
on What Book Next:This enthusiastically written novel is hard to catagorise because it covers so many topics and genres. It won the Tom Fitzgibbon Award for best first novel for children and is bound to be popular with young readers from primary to junior secondary.
It is set in New Zealand in the year 2072 after an enormous battle against global warming and climate change but there are still deniers around who are given the name Anti-Ecs. Lead Anti-Ec is Dezi Krate who owns a massive stealth submarine and a movable island and he wishes to exploit the environment by kidnapping a daughter of the top ranger and getting him to turn the other way.
Dezi has a son called Dom who has developed a talent of being a human Chameleon. Blake Walker and his wife who are the rangers looking after the environment have three daughters with other skills. Anne can breathe like a fish and survive in the sea and Zoe can read minds.
A kidnapping occurs and the action gets going. Lots of high tech stuff and a few laughs as the villains get their comeuppance.
The characters are good role models especially Dom the son of the Anti-Ec and there are good family and community values as well. Something sadly lacking in society at the moment.
Very readable with short chapters and easy font. A deserved winner of the Tom Fitzgibbon Award.
The year is 2072 and governments have changed to ensure that the devastating effects of Climate Change have been pulled back for all inhabitants of Earth. Life is now high tech and children are born with a chosen super power.
The Walker family in New Zealand are coastal rangers – protectors of the surrounding marine environment of where they live in Coromandel. Three sisters, Annie (15), Mia (13) and Zoe (10) live with their aunt and uncle, Pearl and Blake Walker, are constantly improving their skills as young coastal rangers. They all have their own special skills to add to the protection of this area.
Annie can step in the waters around their home and gills and fins will appear to enable her to swim underwater. She can also communicate with sea life.
Mia is incredibly smart, building tech for personal use and for security of their home compound.
Zoe, at only 10, can listen in on people’s thoughts.
These skills are all put to use when a strange submarine appears in the waters outside their home and they are attacked. This attack comes from one of the worst Anti Ec criminals they know. Dezi Krate is one of many in the opposite way of thinking – believing Climate Change is a hoax and wanting to continue in the exploitation of Earth’s resources for personal profit. He has his mind set on seabed mining in Coromandel and he has a plan in mind to get his way – kidnap one of the Walker siblings.
When he finally achieves his objective, snatching one of the siblings from right under the coastal ranger’s noses, he whisks her away to a man-made island. But he has under estimated the Walker family, and in fact his own son, Dom. Dom’s super power is an ability to change like a chameleon, and he puts this skill to good use. He has always been a believer of Climate Change and its effects, opposite to his greedy, powerful father. Dom is horrified at his father’s actions, thinking Dezi has gone a step too far. He dives into a plan of his own.
Want action, superpowers, high tech, and hand to hand combat in a story? Kidnap at Mystery Island has all of these and so much more!
Set in a possible future where New Zealand has no mining, plastic, or toxic chemicals, this story is set in the marine scape of Coromandel. This book is not only for action lovers. Animal lovers will enjoy the interaction between girl and sea life, and Marvel fans can imagine themselves with their own super powers chosen for them by their parents. With both boy and girl heroes and more than one baddie to boo at, I was held from the first page to the last.
With all these captivating ingredients to this gripping story, it is no wonder that Kidnap at Mystery Island was the winner of the NZ Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award 2021.
Author – Carol Garden
Age – 9+
