This was Edward’s story. He has just moved into a new town when he meets the school’s bully who immediately has it out for him. Thankfully, as he wanders in the woods, he stumbles into a cabin and soon finds out it has a huge hole in it. After investigating, he figures out that it actually leads to a deserted island on the other side of the world.
He then goes there repeatedly, to escape everyday life but also because he finds out a way to make money. Except it makes him lie to pretty much everyone and soon, things start to crumble.

This was entertaining. I had trouble getting into it at first but mostly because I was busy. It was an interesting mix of adventure, contemporary and sci-fi. But it got a little too unrealistic for me at times.
Still, I enjoyed this, I had a good time reading it.

I am confident that a young boy who enjoys adventures and mystery would like this book, but it wasn't for me.

It has a quick storyline, interesting characters, and good imagery, so there's nothing wrong with it, it's just not the type of middlegrade I read when I read middlegrade.
Happy reading~!

Blurb:

Edgar Dewitt is the new kid in town. Moving from Alabama to Mount Lanier, Washington has been quite the change, and Edgar quickly realizes making new friends won't be as easy as he thought. On his first day in town, he meets one of Mount Lanier's best: the incorrigible Chris Weedy, who's as bright as a sack of socks and as mean as you can get.

One day while exploring the woods behind his new house, Edgar discovers something mysterious: an old abandoned cabin. But the real magic happens when he finds something even more magnificent inside the cabin itself: a dark and ominous hole. After studying the hole for a few days, Edgar musters his courage and jumps in feet first. It takes him straight through the center of the earth to a tiny island in the middle of the Indian ocean, and Edgar knows he's stumbled upon something ancient. Something secret--a seemingly impossible way to journey to the other side of the world.

For the next several weeks, the island becomes a sanctuary where Edgar can escape Chris Weedy's cruel taunting and his parents' constant questions. But a sudden, nearby wildfire threatens to engulf the town in flames and take Edgar's volunteer firefighter father along with it. Edgar must act fast and decide between saving his new town or keeping his newly found safe haven.

Cover Review:

The cover is blue and beautiful. I really liked it and thought it was pretty suitable to the story.

Review:

I'm not the one to judge the book by its title-cover maybe, but not the title-but when I saw the title 'The Secret Island Of Edgar DeWitt', my first thought was that it was a children's novel, kinda like the Enid Blyton books.

How wrong was I! This book was packed with so many emotions, so much knowledge and a whole lot of adventure.

Edgar's parents were both amazing characters and my absolute favorite. Edgar was a cool character too. Another favorite character of mine was Dr. Van Rossum! He was just SO cool!

The hole, oh my God, I so wanted to fall through it, the author described the fall oh-so-awesomely! A salute to the author's descriptive skills!

All in all, I absolutely loved this book and I'm so thankful I got an ARC for this beautiful masterpiece! <3

This was a fun read, a mix of fantasy and high-school reality that worked well. The characters were believable, the bully and his cohorts were a real threat, and although the development of events was predictable in spots, there were some good surprises as well.

I hope the author will do a little bit of brushing up on his geographical setting. On the first or second page of the book, he has the main character, who lives in Washington state, looking west toward the Rocky Mountains. Nowhere in Washington state can you look west toward the Rockies. I did like that he set the character in a fictional town, which minimizes the name-dropping of locations, which is equally distracting.

"Smiling, they fell back to Earth"


The writing style kept me on my toes the whole time I was reading it. I love this writing style and these are the kind of writing styles that really gets the readers attention and keeps them intrigued the whole time.

I loved the idea, theme and moral of the book. The island and all the things it could mean for different people. The island could be something like a cage for some people with a piece of land surrounded by vast waters. . .but to others, they see it as a challenge or just another thing they have to cross and in fact, they enjoy it.

The characters!! Edgar and Shay are pretty cute here. Flounder is just a baby to me. And the characters in general were written out well.

I also liked how the family concept is added here and how it was interpreted by the story.

The story is very unique and creative. The characters made me want to protect them and carry them with me forever, they were very realistic and believable. The execution of this book was good. I really can't even think of what I didn't like about this book. If there is, it probably is very minimal and everything good definitely outweighs the bad.