Recently I read the book The Raft by S.A. Bodeen. The raft is a 225 page fiction book about a girl’s fight for survival on a raft. The author S.A Bodeen grew up on a dairy farm in wisconsin. She has written several picture books as well as young adult novels such as the compound, the gardener, The Raft and the Fall Out. She has also written a ship wreck island sercies for middle grade readers.currently,  She visits schools and does presentation. I chose this book because the cover was so interesting.

 

The is about a girl named Robbie who gets on a cargo flight with a pilot and co pilot when the engine suddenly cuts out. The plane crashes and she finds herself in the pacific ocean fighting for her life with no sign of help on the way. She meets up with the pilot Max. Unfortunately max dies and creates the illusion that he is still alive. I wish that the author were more clear about his death. I was very confused at times because I thought he was alive. The structure of this book was not very exciting. Having only one character for most of the story made it very boring.  The theme of this book had to do with survival both physically and emotionally. The author did this by having robie create max as being alive so that she would not die of loneliness.

I like this passage  “I’d never realized that I did everything in Honolulu with someone, either AJ or my parents. Come to think of it, everything I did, I did with someone. Even on Midway, when I was alone, people were never very far away.” (page10). This quoted passage  was very interesting to me because it explains how Robie was never alone. This is ironic because she ends up alone throughout the book until the end when she is reunited with her family. This foreshadows the struggle she will have when Max dies.

I would give this book a 5 out of 10 because aside from the plane crash there was very little action to keep me engaged. I guess its true you should never judge a book by its cover.