by Sandra Devera

Created on: June 23, 2009

Terry Pratchett's 367-page Nation can hold its own with such "shipwrecked on a tropical isle" novels as Robison Crusoe, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and the high-school-required-reading-classic Lord of the Flies. In several ways, it is a more satisfying read than any of them.

Mau is a teenage boy sailing his canoe home to his island when a tsunami wipes out his nation. Ermintrude is a teenage girl sailing away from her rather British-like culture when the same wave shipwrecks her on Mau's island. But before you roll your eyes and think "Blue Lagoon," the refreshing thing about Nation is that the story is more adventurous than romantic. As the survivors of this disaster, both teens represent their nations and must overcome their cultural barriers to become leaders in building a new nation. As other victims of the wave come to their shore, the cast of fascinating characters expands. Both Mau and Ermintrude prove themselves intelligent, feisty, adaptable and skilled in their own unique ways. Both wrestle with the issues of "coming of age" and their friendship explores themes of loyalty, spirituality, community, and leadership. Throw in pirates and cannibals and you have the ideal summer read to take with you to the beach whether you are a young adult or older adult reader.

But Nation has more than just the usual Swiss Family Robinson-style of "high-tech invention with low-tech tools" going for it. As Terry Pratchett says in his author's notes, "Thinking. This book contains some. Whether you try it at home is up to you." Pratchett, known primarily for his vast Discworld series, is often considered a humorist, satirist, and all-around-poker-of-fun at the institutions and conventions of society. As a writer, he is capable of churning out whimsical fluff. But in the same way that Picasso, known for his abstract art, was perfectly capable of drawing in a classical and conventional style, Pratchett proves with Nation that he can write, when he wants to, a serious, touching, thoughtful book with characters who must process the big ideas and events of human experience: birth, death, discovery, loss, tradition versus innovation. How do you decide if your parents' religion is something you can believe in? What makes a man masculine and a woman feminine? What separates a noble character from an evil one? That Pratchett can write about these topics while maintaining his sense of humor makes Nation just as worthy of class discussion as Lord of the Flies, yet much more

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