The Coral Island

R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island is a shipwreck adventure for 11 year olds about three boys making a home on a desert island.

What happens

Ralph Rover tells the story. He's fifteen, he's always been a wanderer, and he's heard so many sailors' tales about the coral islands of the South Seas that he talks his parents into letting him sail there.

On board the Arrow he makes two friends. Jack is eighteen, tall, clever and calm. Peterkin is about fourteen, small and cheeky, and can't take anything seriously. Then a storm rages for five days, the ship smashes onto a reef, and the three boys cling to an oar until they're thrown ashore.

Between them they have almost nothing. A broken penknife. A telescope with a smashed lens. Six yards of string. An axe that happened to get stuck in their oar. (Peterkin decides the notched knife can be a saw as well.)

The best part is watching them work it all out. How to get a fire going with a bow and a bit of stick. Which coconuts to drink from (the green ones taste like lemonade!). The lagoon turns out to be a garden of coral in every colour, and Jack laughs so hard underwater he nearly chokes.

Peterkin is the one who'll make your reader grin. He'd like an enormous salary for doing nothing, please, and he declares the island Paradise before he's even dried off.

The language takes some getting used to. The sentences are long, and there are lots of words like 'countenance'. Ralph also repeats some very old-fashioned ideas about the people of the South Seas, calling them savages and fully expecting to be eaten. His faith runs through the story too (he's dismayed to have left his Bible on the ship). You may want to talk those views through together. A confident reader who loves survival stories will probably take the language in their stride.

What to read next

If they enjoy children loose on an island and diving down to see what's under the water, Five on a Treasure Island has rocks all round, a ruined castle and an old wreck to swim down to.