The Island at the End of Everything

Name: William Joseph
Price range: $

by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Interest age: 10 to 14
Reading age: 10+

Published by Chicken House, 2017

Around the world
Historical

About this book

Amihan lives on the secluded island of Culion with her sick mum, who has leprosy. But when the government decides the island must be quarantined, Ami and all the children who don’t have the disease are forced to leave – while her mum must stay behind, along with everything Ami has ever known.

Separated from everything she loves, Ami embarks on a daring journey to find a way back home. When she discovers an abandoned boat, she sets out to fix it. But is she brave enough to take it across the fierce waves and back to Culion? Across the fierce water and through the forest, Ami faces many challenges, but the hardest one of all is waiting for her at home.

Poetic, bittersweet and full of heart, this has the feel and quality of an instant classic. Author Kiran Millwood Hargrave writes with a beautiful and gentle touch, evoking a lush and bountiful home for Ami in which disease is just another element to be balanced and lived with rather than separated from, while nature is as much of a character as the people.

About the author

Kiran Millwood Hargrave was born in Surrey in 1990, and her earliest ambition was to be a cat, closely followed by a cat-owner or the first woman on Mars. She has achieved only one of these things, but discovered that being a writer lets you imagine whatever you want.

She started writing poetry in her final year at university, producing three poetry books and a play before she turned to fiction. Her bestselling debut The Girl of Ink & Stars, about a mapmaker’s daughter who must save her island, won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2017 and the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year. Her second standalone story, The Island at the End of Everything, was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award and the Costa Children’s Book Award, and long listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. Her third book, The Way Past Winter, was the Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Year 2018.

Kiran lives in Oxford with her husband, the artist Tom de Freston, and the fulfilment of one of her earliest ambitions: their cat, Luna.

More books like this

The Wolf Wilder

by Katherine Rundell
Asha and the Spirit Bird

by Jasbinder Bilan

9 to 14 years
In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen

by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

9 to 14 years
Leila and the Blue Fox

by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, illustrated by Tom de Freston

9 to 14 years

Explore our Bookfinder

Lists of recommended reads

Summer reads for 8-12s

Here are our suggestions for summer reads – and there's something for every child, aged 8-12 years old. New books; old books; books about summer; books to get lost in; and books that come in series, so they won't have to stop reading this summer!
Books that feature single mums

Parents are not usually the focus of books for children – they’re not the ones having the adventures, after all! Here are some of our favourite stories that happen to have a single mum in the background. Sometimes this is through death, sometimes divorce, and sometimes the reason is never mentioned. All children will enjoy these fantastic stories.
Adventure books 9-12

From an ape getting involved in a murder case to schoolgirl cat burglars and mysteries taking place across the world, there are some brilliant capers out there just waiting to be devoured.
Books about family illness

Books can help if you and your family are going through tough times. It is comforting to know that you're not the only one. This is a selection of stories where a member of the protagonist's family is ill. It includes mental illness, as well as physical.

Discover more booklists