Finn's Island

The author of the well-received House on the Hill (1987) presents another Scottish family coming to terms with its past. Finn Lochlan and his dad, a teacher forced into early retirement, live with his recently widowed Granny on a farm that Mr. Lochlan is too depressed to manage. Finn's fantasy life centers on Hirsay, the desolate island where Grandpa grew up. When Douglas Cooper comes to do his agricultural training on their farm, all three respond; Finn, especially, warms to the big, hearty man. Then Douglas brings his son, 11 to Finn's 10, for a visit; at first, each boy is wary of the other, but when Finn learns that Chris has frailties to balance the strengths he envies, they become friends. Fulfilling Finn's lifelong dream, he joins the Coopers in an expedition to Hirsay in search of the rare ``pathan'' plant, a potent folk remedy bidding for medical recognition. Hirsay's forbidding weather and terrain manifest why Grandpa and other inhabitants were evacuated 60 years earlier, challenging Finn's idylls with stern reality; worse, heedless vandals have destroyed the pathan with a fire. It turns out, however, that Grandpa kept a small cache of the seeds. Despite some contrivance--e.g., a dramatic cliff-rescue demonstrating both Chris's mettle and Douglas's vulnerability- -these are thoughtfully developed people, and the meshing of their lives is both unusual and believable. (Fiction. 9-12) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Grade 4-6-- Unhappy with his gloomy life on a Scottish farm with a depressed and distant father, Finn Lochlan invents a fantasy world involving the island of Hirsay, where his grandfather lived as a young boy. After he visits Hirsay, he realizes that his grandfather's life there must have been harsh and dangerous. Dunlop's style is always graceful and frequently poetic. In the course of the story she brings forward many important topics, including the abuse of the environment, the ways in which people romanticize the past, and the need for family members to talk to one another. However, there is little that is subtle about the way the messages are delivered, and parts of the plot are contrived; by the novel's end, things have perhaps come together a wee bit too easily for Finn. Also, the adventurous moments of the story are not fleshed out (for example when Finn finds himself stranded on a cliff hundreds of feet above the ocean). Instead, these events are covered rather rapidly, as if the author can't wait to get back to deliver another message. --Todd Morning, Schaumburg Township Public Library, IL
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.