almost like a version of island of dr. moraeu. this is the first thing that i thought of when i started reading this book and if you have not seen that or read it you should. ( )

Good, interesting premise, but such poor writing. High School subject matter, Junior High writing ability. Predictable. There were lots of unbelievable parts. Halam did a mediocre job of creating willing suspension of disbelief. I was disappointed. Less than average, but I'm feeling generous with the stars today. ( )

Ever ask yourself what you would do in a moment of crisis? How you would handle yourself in an emergency situation? Wonder just how much survival instinct do you have? What are the limits to physical and mental human endurance? There is a plane full of students flying over the Atlantic Ocean who are about to find out. When a case of physical wilderness survival becomes a case of mental fortitude, who has the wherewithal to make it out with all their limbs and their minds intact?
I’ll be honest; this book scared the bejesus out of me. The wilderness survival stuff I could stand just fine and thoroughly enjoyed. But at the point when the two girls start actually changing, I had a moment of, “wait… really?!” I think I was expecting for them to somehow make their grand escape and flee before anything happened to them and this really took me for a loop. For me, it really made me wonder what exactly I could take and at what point I would have completely lost it. A nice blend of science fiction and horror that actually did make it hard to put down because I was so creeped out that I just had to know what happened next. ( )

This book to me was a let down i thought that it would be good. it was kind of interesting but to me it was too predictable. this book was too much like the movie The Island of Dr. Moreau. I did finish this book and it has a couple of twists. But this wasn't the greatest book i have ever read.

Ross McGee
EDCI 5120
Halam, A. (2002). Dr. franklin’s island. New York: Random House

Grade Levels: 7-12
Category: Science Fiction
Read Alouds: 1-11 (Semi’s plane crashes, she meets Arnie and Miranda), 110-125 (Semi and Miranda begin transforming into animals), 222-238 (Arnie comes back, he and Miranda kill Dr. Franklin, they all take the antidote and begin turning back into humans).

Summary: Semi, a shy young girl, is on a plane going to Ecuador for a kind of science camp when the plane crashes and the only survivors are her along with two others, Arnie and Miranda. The island is inhabited by Dr. Franklin and his cronies, a group that is doing experiments and turns Semi, Arnie and Miranda into a stingray, a snake, and a bird. In the end they escape, kill Dr. Franklin, and take and antidote that turns them back into humans. They find their way off the island with the help of Dr. Skinner and promise to tell no one of their adventure.

Themes: One theme of Dr. Franklin’s Island is that there are things out there that science is capable of, that we still shouldn’t mess around with. Although an interesting experiment, turning humans into animals to try and give them more powers is as wrong as cloning, because it messes with DNA and what we were meant to be as humans. This book doesn’t really blur the lines here, focusing on a negative experience of such experiments, but rather warns against such things because of not knowing where to draw the line. Another theme in this book is friendship. Even though they are each turned into different animals that have a hard time communicating with each other, the kids maintain their loyalty to one another and in the end the strength of their friendship and defense of one another is what saves them and gets them off the island.

Discussion Questions:
If humans could be turned into animals like that, should they, if they volunteer?
Is Dr. Franklin an evil man? List evidence for or against your claim.
Would you trust Arnie after what he did? Why do you think he was turned into a snake?

Reader Response: Dr. Franklin’s Island was a similar story to the movie: The Island of Dr. Moreau. It was a toned down, kid’s version, but brought up a similar group of moral arguments against genetic manipulation. I love fantasy and think this book would have been a fun read when I was a teenager, but many kids would have the opposite reaction. I thought it was cool how Semi’s thought process changed as she changed into a stingray. Not only did her body physically change, but we saw the mental change in how she communicated and reasoned, which was probably not easy for Halam to write. Kids are always playing the game where they ask each other what animal they would be if they had their pick, so this is a great caveat to that conversation, except that these kids didn’t get to pick. I kind of suspected the animals to simply escape at the end and live the rest of their lives in their current form, out in the world. In a way, I think an ending such as that would have made the book even more interesting, but I liked it all the same. ( )