FORBIDDEN PASSAGE

This series opener, a companion to Probst and Tebbetts’ Stranded books, finds the recently rescued children shipwrecked yet again on another tropical island, this one perhaps not deserted.

Buzz and Carter, both 11, 9-year-old Jane and 13-year-old Vanessa recently became siblings when their parents married. The family trip to Hawaii went wrong when their boat sank and stranded them on an island. Now, almost immediately after being reunited with their parents, they find themselves stranded yet again, this time on an island with a mysterious indigenous population. The children of the island, seemingly at first the only inhabitants, capture the foursome but treat them well. Alarmingly, the island children erect a canopy that hides them from the planes out looking for the siblings. Oh no! How will their parents ever find them? However, the siblings meet Ani, an adult who speaks English and tells them of an upcoming opportunity to escape. Apparently uninterested in authentic representations of indigenous island peoples, Probst and Tebbetts use them as plot devices to drive action but focus much of their story on the emotional turmoil of the four siblings. They keep the pages turning and economically set up the sequel simply by not ending their current story.

Exactly what fans of the franchise should expect.