Rating: 
Summary: Just Right for Harry Potter Fans
Review: If you are looking for something funny to read and you love the Harry Potter books, then Island of the Aunts is the book for you. It's about five comical aunts, three of whom live together on an island (one is in jail, and another married a tax collector). Though there are few humans on the island, it's far from deserted. It's full of real and imaginary marine creatures that all have feelings and need taking care of . When the aunts realize someone will need to take care of the island after their death, it's off on a wild search through London to find the right children to do the job. This book is funny, touching, and exciting. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Rating: 
Summary: The content shouldn't be for children.
Review: If you don't mind your children reading a book that contains nudists or contains children, in essence, worshipping a sea creature, and so on... then this book is for you. Otherwise, just find another book.
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Summary: I love this book!
Review: If you enjoyed The Secret of Platform 13 and Dial-A-Ghost, then you'll really like Island of the Aunts. It's about three women, Etta, Coral, and Myrtle, who live on a tiny island in the middle of the sea. On this island they take care of the most strange and exotic animals ever! These women, who really are aunts themsleves, decide that they must find some children to help them with their work and to take care of the island when they are gone. So, they travel to London to "choose" some children to go back with them. They pose as aunts, but not the kind that are one of your parents' sisters, the kind that take you places because your parents are too busy. After the children are "chosen" and taken back to the island, one aunt tells the others that she brought back a child who never should have come to the island. This story goes on, but you'll have to read the book to see what happens! The book is full of humor, primarily British. I hope that you enjoy this book as much as I did!
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Summary: Island of the Aunts
Review: Island of the Aunts -- by Eva Ibbotson Island of the Aunts is an exciting book about three kidnapped children who are taken to a secret island where there are many magical creatures. It is a great fantasy book about friendship, trust, loyalty, and fun. The main characters in this book are extremely realistic. Island of the Aunts is a highly recommended book. The author described the scenes using vivid descriptions, so the reader can easily picture the situation and actually felt like part of the story rather than an observer reading a book. The author easily held the reader's attention with descriptive and exciting events. Each event in this creative story was well crafted to leave the reader wondering what was going to happen next. The adventurous and daring characters had many realistic qualities that made the story very believable.
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Summary: Loved It!
Review: Island Of The Aunts is a great book, I loved it. It is about 3 elderly aunts Myrtle, Etta, and Coral who decide soon they will die and someone will need to look after the Island. The Island is filled with magical creatures like mermaids, selkies, and even boobrie's. So the aunts head off to kidnap children to run the Island when they are to old to do the work. They kidnap Fabio and Minette who soon learn to love the Island and the aunts. But Myrtle kidnaps a boy named Lambert Sprott who hates the Island and has temper tantrums all the time. The children(except Lambert) love looking after the strange creatures on the Island. The Island is a forgotten place. It is not on any maps and no one knows about it.But when Lambert finds his mobile telephone and manages to reach his father Mr. Sprott sets out on his own boat to find Lambert. He goes through a nudist colony, a island full of sheep, and finally they reach the island. Mr. Sprott is a mean man who wants the Island for himself. He captures all of the creatures on the Island plus the aunts and Fabio and Minette. Will the creatures be safe and will Fabio and Minette make it through this hardship to live and save the Island? Or is this the end of it all? Read Island Of The Aunts to find out if Fabio, Minette, the creatures and the aunts can get away from Mr. Sprott.
Rating:
Summary: Island of the Aunts
Review: Island of the Aunts is an imaginative story of an Island that not only is the habitat for normal gulls, seals and dolphins, but also selkies, mermaids and wingless dragons, not to mention a couple of ghosts. There are five aunts who originally cared for these creatures, but one of them went to foreign countries to stop people from eating rare animals, and the other was a snotty stuck-up sister who went and got filthy rich by marrying a man with three types of toilet refreshener in his bathroom. Now there are only three aunts still remaining on the island and if you want to know what happens to these aunts on the endless journey to keep the island a secret and find worthy children to watch over the island when the aunts die, read this beautifully written story Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson. If you have read this book already and enjoyed it then two other books similar to this one also by Eva Ibbotson are Which Witch and The Secret of Platform Thirteen.
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Summary: Island of the Aunts: a fantastic book!!
Review: Island of the Aunts
By: Eva Ibbotson
Reviewed by: d Kim
Period: P.6
The story is about a boy and a girl in their tens or so kidnapped to a mysterious island by a group of aunts. The aunts that kidnapped them for a good reason because that needed the children to take care of an amazing island when they died. The island is not the regular island. It contains mermaids, selkies, boobries, and many more. The aunts try to teach them the things to take care of the island and not to have favorites. The kids learn how to manage the island and then they slowly start to love it.
I really liked this book because it is filled with many wonderful things. It shows how a boobrie's egg (a boobrie is a huge bird) can be cooked into 72 omelets. It also shows how a selkie, a mysterious seal can talk to humans. The kids are also introduced to a group of very unusual mermaids in a little house. It even shows a stoorworm (a huge worm that swims in water) talk to them without harming them. They luckily meet a spirit filled with good that wasn't seen for a hundred years.
I also liked this book because it shows when one of the aunts kidnaps an annoying boy. The boy yells for his cell phone and complains about everything. He reminds me of my little brother who does nothing and is very annoying. The bad boy (his name is Lambert) has a very rich father and always gets what he wants. One day he finds his cell phone and causes them a lot of trouble. Lambert's father comes and causes lots of damage to the island.
My favorite part is when the aunts introduce the two kids to their father. Their father is a very old man; he is over a hundred years old and very deaf and blind. When he saw the children, he squinted and instantly started babbling about his old days when he was young. He would tell them stories when a boy lifted his teacher's desk with one hand. He would also say when that same boy put a snake down the teacher's pants. It was my favorite book and I enjoyed it very much.
Rating: 
Summary: A 7th Grade Student
Review: It is terribly unfair to compare any author living and working today to the late great Roald Dahl. Nonetheless, you hear it all the time. "Oh, J.K. Rowling writes about candy as well as Roald Dahl". "Oh, Lemony Snicket has the same dark streak as Roald Dahl". "Oh, Roald Dahl's later works are almost as good as Roald Dah's early ones". You get the picture. Then along comes Eva Ibbotson. Eva isn't asking you to consider her the next Dahl. Eva just wants you to read her books and enjoy them. And if they happen to bear some slight Dahlish qualities (horrid beastly children, large odd creatures of magnificent size, and adults of peculiar natures) that's not her fault. A good writer comes up with original eclectic characters and situations. And Eva Ibbotson fits that description to a tee.
The book begins with 3 kidnappings. Not your usual snatch-a-kid-and-hold-them-for-ransom kidnappings. No, these are kidnappings in which both the children and the adults are (initially at least) unwilling participants. You see, on a great mysterious island far far in the ocean live three aunts and their ancient father. The women care for a vast assortment of creatures of which some are normal, some are odd, and some are very very odd. The aunts have noticed that they're growing old, though. With no children of their own they know they need some healthy youngsters to carry on when they are gone. That's where the kidnapping part comes in. Oh sure, the aunts know that kidnapping is deeply amoral. But so is the potential plight their creatures might face without some human protection. In a jiffy the three have snatched a child apiece. Two are perfect for the task at hand. As for the third, he wreaks a terrible havoc on the island that no one could have predicted.
There were a lot of things I liked about this book. I liked Ibbotson's writing style. Her plot is easy to follow and constantly interesting. She isn't interested in bogging the reader down with long dreary descriptions or nauseatingly dull passages. Instead, everything is spiffy and quick. Characters are infinitely understandable and multi-layered the minute she writes about them. I was particularly amused by the characters of the aunts. Though not attractive in the traditional sense of the word, and well past their prime (in the olden days they would have been referred to as crones), they still command a great deal of respect from the reader. How many children's books can you name where a group of middle aged women are the heroes of the tale? I suspect, not many. The two children that fit in well on the island, Minette and Fabio, are good kids that don't annoy you. And the children that aren't good kids (the spoiled Lambert and the impossible Boo-Boo and the Little One) are horrid in all the best possible ways. Who isn't going to instantly dislike a child that insists that its shoes be given a coat of tan polish? "It's got to be tan, not brown". I loved that Ibbotson was able to show children with similar backgrounds but grossly different personalities. Though both Lambert and Fabio are from rich families, one boy is obviously a good kid and the odd a disgusting little louse.
Then there's the fact that Ibbotson doesn't rely on the usual fantastical creatures in her book. Oh sure, there are mermaids and ghosts n' stuff. But there are also selkies, boobries, kraken, stoorworms, and even the occasional naak. I loved how she incorporated such an amazing variety of animalia into her tale. Finally, a tip of the hat to Ibbotson's storytelling technique. When things get bleak in this puppy they get very bleak indeed. I warn you... if you're not prepared to read the last eight chapters in one sitting you may regret it quite a lot. Cause once the troubles start coming, you're going to feel obligated to follow them through till the happy ending.
The illustrations by Kevin Hawkes add just the right touch to the tale. I hadn't even really realized that there would be illustrations to this book until I came to the picture of Aunt Etta staring with unusual intensity at a small and somewhat wary Minette. Really, it's the pictures that make this book as good as it is. All I ask is that you turn to page 102 of the book and look at the picture there. If you find (after having read up to this point) that you can look at this illustration and NOT guffaw, then find yourself a sense of humor and purchase it immediately. The picture's the funniest thing I may ever see in a kid's book.
And I haven't even begun to gush about the use of nudists in the text (fabulously done), or the logic of mermaids luring Arabian oil ships onto rocks (they were hoping for treasure), or the great horrid parents found in the text, or the kraken, or.... Ah well. That's the problem with reviews that are limited to 1000 words, I guess. Take my advice and read yourself a little of this book. It definitely will ever-so-briefly satiate kids that yearn for the magic and mystery usually found in a Harry Potter creation. Moreover, it will amuse and delight every person of every age. It's a fine fine book.
Rating:
Summary: 3 kidnapping Aunts Kidnap 3 Children
Review: Kidnapping Aunts on the loose in London! Enter a world that your imagination can't even create. Only such an author as Eva Ibbotson has the mind to do it. Mermaids, Selkies, and a large bird called the Boobrie live on the Island. And when three aunt's name Aunt Myrtle, Aunt Etta, and Aunt Coral need honest and caring children. They do the most desperate thing ever; they go posing as Aunts from an agency called "Unusual Aunts." They kidnap three children Minette and sentesine girl, Fabio a foreign boy how is so sweet, and Lambert, loudmouth, cries for his cell phone and his daddy. The kids soon find out the magic, mystery, and peace this Island has. This is a story where everything you didn't believe in comes to life.
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Summary: Irresistibly funny and thrilling
Review: Kidnapping is always wrong, but not when weird magical creatures on a remote Scottish island need to be protected! Three eccentric English sisters have vowed to protect and save the special sea monsters - including a stoorworm, three mermaids and most important of all the kraken's son, without whom all the wonders of the sea would cease. But they're growing old, so they kidnap three children to take their place - Minette, crushed between her quarrelsome, divorced parents, Fabio, the miserable half-Brazilian heir of of revolting Mountjoys and Lambert, spoilt rich brat. At first terrified, the children fall in love with the Island and its amazing secrets. Guess who spoils it all by ringing his crooked dad on his mobile.... This is the fourth Ibbotson novel I've read to my kids (6 + 9) at night. Her masterpiece is the prize-winning Journey to the River Sea, but they're all fabulously mad and magical.
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