The Story Box

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Revisiting themes used in Beyond the Dark River and Invitation to the
Game, Monica Hughes has created Ariban, an island utopia where people
have deliberately isolated themselves from contaminating foreign
influences. Ruled by Elder Fisher and Elder Shepherd, the islanders,
principally fishers and herders, live communal but highly regimented and
controlled lives. For example, marriages are arranged. The biggest
“sin,” punishable by banishment or death, is to dream, for dreams
are seen as “lies,” expressions of the imagination that present
alternatives to the “truth” as defined by the correct life that has
been prescribed on Ariban.

Following a storm, Colin, 15, discovers a young woman washed up on the
beach clutching a beautifully carved, locked chest. Foreigners, even
those from trading vessels, are not permitted ashore, and now Colin has
brought this stranger, Jennifer, into his parents’ home. Even worse,
as Colin discovers, Jennifer is a storyteller, a teller of things
untrue, and the chest contains books of stories. When another storm
kills two fishermen, the grieving wife/mother demands lives in return:
the stranger’s and that of Colin’s younger sister, Etta, whom
Jennifer has supposedly bewitched. Colin, also implicated, must prove
his loyalty to Ariban by burning Jennifer’s books, objects he
initially disdained but now recognizes as a “treasure far richer”
than gold or jewels.

Hughes has constructed a compelling plot that persuasively argues for
the creative and healing power of storytelling in people’s lives.
Thinking adolescents will recognize the parallels between Ariban and the
contemporary world. Highly recommended.