Found: Non fiction, sci-fi read the book 25+ years ago.

Ok, so non fiction. This book starts off with a boy who runs away in the near future. He climbs on a flying train? I think. The train crashes in the middle of the sea and he ends up on an island. He's then fostered to a family that raises dolphins? If I can remember correctly. He swims with the dolphins and goes to nearby islands looking for treasure. When I do this search it always ends up with Island of the blue dolphins and I'm positive this is not the book. Please help!

Hmm. Non-fiction you say, with a "flying train"?

That would truly be amazing. Please let us know when you find this tale.

Arthur C. Clarke: Dolphin Island
It's a hovercraft, not a train, but same same :-)

Wow... it's that easy! You are amazing... I can't believe the the title I feel really dumb with the non fiction sorry.

>4 RainbowTrout: Bit off-topic, but I'd say no need to feel dumb. Words in the brain are stored both near words that are pronounced similarly and near words that mean similar things. Which means it's easy for humans to accidentally pick a word that is close to the intended one and not realize it. This is a normal cognitive process that every language user is susceptible to. In most cases, including this one, it's very obvious what was intended and so there's no real problem here. The sort of pedantic sarcasm in message 2 is usually fuelled by contempt, and the contempt in turn is usually fuelled by a common belief that language needs to be tightly and pedantically regulated. Common, but scientifically baseless - languages inevitably change a lot over time and they self-regulate as they do. If the words are so close together that they cause a lot of mix-ups and confusion, then the accumulated collective need will inspire a new one that's farther away to show up and fill the gap. You're fine.

(Source: am a linguistics professor.)

>5 beyondthefourthwall: My entire life I've always confused left from right, fiction, non fiction. At this point I've found my childhood book and I cant be any more happy!

>4 RainbowTrout: and >6 RainbowTrout: Thanks for confirming that I guessed right.

>5 beyondthefourthwall:, or fueled by amusement. I laughed, for example, and felt I was doing it 'with' the person making the error, not 'at'. I'm prone to mistakes as much as anyone, why not be amused by them?

Speaking of errors and Dolphin Island, I read this in school in fifth grade and it blew my mind because it was NOT the kind of book we got to read in school. Then immediately afterward we read Island of the Blue Dolphins. At the time I thought it was a funny coincidence, or that my English teacher really loved dolphins. In retrospect, I think she ordered the wrong book at first; it was her first year teaching.

>9 jollyavis:, that's a great story; she must have covered her tracks very well!