🤷♂️The Notted Island (2025)
- 4rbooks
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
By Katherine Child
4Rbooks 3/6 grades 5-8
Amazon 5/5 (only three reviews) grade level 5-6
Goodreads 4.13/5
Common Sense Media Not yet reviewed
131 pages
Synopsis
Last Island has a Notte. She is responsible for drawing up the night sky every evening and then putting it away in the morning. For many years her timing has been erratic and the townspeople of Grubb are frustrated. There was a falling out many years prior and the people of Grubb and the Notte have not spoken since. They blame her that “colour” has not made it’s way to the island.
One day a salesman shows up in town with a device that will put up the night sky without the need of a notte. The people are intrigued, but Tisky, who someday wants to be a notte herself, learns that the salesman is lying and sets off on a journey across the island to find the notte and help her to save her job.
Tisky’s overnight journey includes strange and unusual plants and birds, granite and river sprites, and an unexpected journey across the water to the Isle of Night where she meets a previous notte. With the help of a shadow named Jink, Tisky makes it to the home of the notte and together they bring peace and colour to the island.
Parental Guidelines: low
Tisky decides to take the note to the Notte on her own without informing her parents. Her journey has moments of danger.
The details of the story can be complicated and confusing.
Recommendation
This is another “meh” book for me. Nothing to dissuade somebody from reading it, but nothing to recommend it highly. The concept had potential, but the plot is slow to develop and the execution is complicated and confusing. At times there are too many details and other times more details are needed. A strong reader might find the idea interesting and the illustrations are very well done, but I think an average to struggling reader would give up on the story a few chapters in.
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