Title: The Islands at the End of the World
Author: Austin Aslan
Copyright: 2014
ISBN: 0385744021
Dewey Decimal Number: FIC ASL
Reading range: 12 and up
Booktalk: Hawaii is paradise. Or at least sixteen year old Leilani thinks so, until her world ends. First, there is a meteor strike off the coast of Alaska that causes a tsunami. Next, a mysterious green cloud arrives and stays over the islands. Last, all electronic devices--phones, TVs, microwaves, even cars--stop working. Leilani and her father catch only snippets of an underground address from the President before all communication from the mainland stops. Hawaiians are left isolated and wondering what is happening around the world. To make matters worse, Leilani is not just the average teen who loves surfing and painting her nails, she is an epileptic and experiences seizures that could, if bad enough, actually kill her. It is during Leilani’s pilot treatment for a new epilepsy medicine that the world as she knows it ends, and in a new reality of relocation camps, tribal gang warfare, and starvation, Leilani and her father struggle to get home to their family. While they fight against increasingly difficult odds to make it from O’ahu to the Big Island, Leilani slowly discovers that there is more to the strange green cloud--and her epilepsy--than she could have ever imagined.
Ways the book can be used in lessons, with standards, or in the classroom, or other reasons you connected with the book:
What initially attracted me to this book is its genre--I love dystopian fiction. Its descriptions of Hawaii, a place I have yet to visit, are vivid, and the included maps give the story an authentic sense of place. Leilani, the sixteen year-old protagonist, is realistic and well-developed. Details like her sense of humor, the camaraderie she shares with her father, and her desire to both shave her legs and paint her fingernails on several occasions during the book make her relatable to most teens. This book could be used in classroom lending library or in the school library as an independent reading book. Social studies teachers could assign this book in units in which they ask students to read fiction books set in specific locations around the U.S. or world. In the Language Arts classroom, students reading this book could be asked to write their own ending (I found the ending not up to the caliber of the rest of the book) or write creatively about what they would do in a situation similar to Leilani's. Creating writing opportunities abound, and students could write letters between characters or diary entries from Leilani or her father's points of view as they struggle to return home.
Common Core standards:
Key Ideas and Details:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.1
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.3
Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
Craft and Structure:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.5
Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.6
Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.10
By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Research to Build and Present Knowledge:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.9
Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Author: Austin Aslan
Copyright: 2014
ISBN: 0385744021
Dewey Decimal Number: FIC ASL
Reading range: 12 and up
Booktalk: Hawaii is paradise. Or at least sixteen year old Leilani thinks so, until her world ends. First, there is a meteor strike off the coast of Alaska that causes a tsunami. Next, a mysterious green cloud arrives and stays over the islands. Last, all electronic devices--phones, TVs, microwaves, even cars--stop working. Leilani and her father catch only snippets of an underground address from the President before all communication from the mainland stops. Hawaiians are left isolated and wondering what is happening around the world. To make matters worse, Leilani is not just the average teen who loves surfing and painting her nails, she is an epileptic and experiences seizures that could, if bad enough, actually kill her. It is during Leilani’s pilot treatment for a new epilepsy medicine that the world as she knows it ends, and in a new reality of relocation camps, tribal gang warfare, and starvation, Leilani and her father struggle to get home to their family. While they fight against increasingly difficult odds to make it from O’ahu to the Big Island, Leilani slowly discovers that there is more to the strange green cloud--and her epilepsy--than she could have ever imagined.
Ways the book can be used in lessons, with standards, or in the classroom, or other reasons you connected with the book:
What initially attracted me to this book is its genre--I love dystopian fiction. Its descriptions of Hawaii, a place I have yet to visit, are vivid, and the included maps give the story an authentic sense of place. Leilani, the sixteen year-old protagonist, is realistic and well-developed. Details like her sense of humor, the camaraderie she shares with her father, and her desire to both shave her legs and paint her fingernails on several occasions during the book make her relatable to most teens. This book could be used in classroom lending library or in the school library as an independent reading book. Social studies teachers could assign this book in units in which they ask students to read fiction books set in specific locations around the U.S. or world. In the Language Arts classroom, students reading this book could be asked to write their own ending (I found the ending not up to the caliber of the rest of the book) or write creatively about what they would do in a situation similar to Leilani's. Creating writing opportunities abound, and students could write letters between characters or diary entries from Leilani or her father's points of view as they struggle to return home.
Common Core standards:
Key Ideas and Details:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.1
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.3
Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
Craft and Structure:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.5
Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.6
Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.10
By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Research to Build and Present Knowledge:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.9
Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.