Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
TARIK AND the Island of Adventure is a children's adventure book which blends the tradition of the terrible 'socouyant',' douen and 'La Diablesse' (duppies all, for Jamaican children), among others, with the technology of the computer game and, at the very end, time travel.
Twelve-year old Tarik, followed by his sister Penelope by snooping and best friend Eddie by invitation, find themselves (or at least miniature replicas) trapped in the 'Island of Adventure' computer game, in which they are forced to follow a series of clues to a treasure. It is a journey on a tropical island fraught with danger, from plants that grip, to caves with plants to induce drowsiness and death.
Time is compressed, so two hours in the game is a full day, the children having to play after school hours and on Saturdays, the computer starting up with smell of food, mostly good but bad when the game is in a bad mood.
The concept is good, if not strikingly original, as the book smacks of Harry Potter (a magic feather used almost as a wand, but without spoken spells), Jurassic Park (deadly dinosaurs), Back To the Future (time travel) and the sirens that tempted the Argonauts. (But I am sure that those smack of something that predated them).
BOND
In addition we see the bond growing between brother and sister as they face danger together, as well as the presentation of a Caribbean family - a loving, successful one, the middle class credentials firmly established by the siblings father's bank job, which affords his wife the luxury of staying home, and their shiny Japanese car.
We also get detailed pictures of a beautiful island ("the whole eastern coastline of the island could be seen from the heights, with the indigo sea that reached all the way across the Atlantic to Africa beating high against the dark rock cliffs in bursts of snowy foam"), as well as the use of the traditional, such as garlic, in times of extreme danger, showing the value of grandma's tales.
All good, but I cannot be sure if Tarik and the Island of Adventure is a children's book or not. Of course, the main characters would suggest that it is, but for one they speak in rather stilted voices ("Just down the trail a little way I noticed some wild garlic growing. It's that plant with the thin, long leaves and whitish flowers. If you pick it, it smells of garlic," Eddy says when the socouyant literally has their backs to the wall). And then there is a glossary which includes words like 'decal', 'luminance' and 'manipulate'.
Also, Tarik and the Island of Adventure goes on longer than it needs to, taking them into and out of danger over and over again longer than necessary and bringing in the mother's suspicion way too late.
On the more positive side, the book has good illustrations. Naturally Tarik, Penelope and Eddy survive and beat 'The Game', but only just, disappearing before angry Carib warriors as the time travel factor from the treasure they pursued kicks in.
Tarik and the Island of Adventure is written by Lee Kessell. The MacMillan Caribbean publication runs 202 pages.
