Jungle Islands: My South Sea Adventure

Nikki Tate-Stratton writes novels for pre-teens; her latest books are
Jessa Be Nimble, Rebel Be Quick; Raven’s Revenge; and Tarragon Island.

In this adventure-travel book, Maria Coffey relates the story of her
kayak travels in the Solomon Islands. For anyone interested in examining
what it’s like to be a modern-day explorer, this is a great book to
fuel the imagination and stimulate interest in a remote area of the
world.

Color photographs (by Coffey’s husband, Dag Goering) have lots of
appeal for the intended audience; the subjects include local children,
traditional foods, housing, wildlife, and tropical scenery. The
anecdotes, like the pictures, will also appeal to young readers; these
are clearly written, relevant, and interesting. Informative sidebars
highlight aspects of island life.

The two introductory chapters, in which Coffey describes how she lost
her fear of open water and then speaks at length about how the decision
was made to journey to the South Seas, get the book off to a slow start.
This material could have been condensed or incorporated into the body of
the text. The rest of the text fails to mention distances for each leg
of the journey, the size of the islands visited, the overall mileage
covered, or the number of days the trip took. The maps, though colorful,
are not easy to read. Their fuzziness gives very little information
about the nature of the terrain, and they’re not to scale.

The inclusion of facts and statistics (such as provision lists—how
many cans of tuna fish fit in a kayak?) as well as accurate,
more-detailed maps would have done much to help the reader feel part of
this expedition. Recommended with reservations.