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Summary: A great story for kids!!
Review: Let the reader be reminded that this book is 150 years old and that certain things written in the book were considered standard at the time such as the converting of indegenous people to Christianity in order to 'civilise' them. How times have changed!! Also the analysis in Lord of the Flies must be borne by the fact that a larger number of boys existed in that novel and both books were written 100 years apart.
Robert Ballantyne warns readers in the introduction that if they wish to be melancholy and morose, they not bother reading the book. I'm sure that the novel was not intended to be written for analysis 150 years later!However this novel is a creative and educational story of three shipwrecked boys on a Coral Island and how they learn to survive in the wilderness and encouter natives and pirates. Captured by pirates, Ralph escapes back to the island and returns to Fiji with Jack and Peterkin to try and sort out family problems with some of the natives they met. This makes for an intersting conclusion...
Rating: 
Summary: Who was Ballantyne's informant??
Review: R.M.Ballantyne never visited the Pacific but the colorful fiction he wrote in England circa 1843 became a major influence on children's literature. Young Robert Louis Stevenson was a great admirer of R.M.Ballantyne. "Lord of the Flies" was a 20th Century response to the 19th Century genre of altruistic boy's adventure stories that followed Ballantyne's highly successful novel "The Coral Island". Where did Ballantyne get his information? Relatively few Europeans had visited the area he clearly described between Fiji & Samoa prior to the 1840s. Perhaps he got specific detailed accounts from an earlier book or from missionaries, whalers or members of the Wilkes or Belcher expeditions who may have visited the Lau Islands and then England prior to 1843 (please, does anyone know?). Much of the action in Ballantyne's novel takes place on an island called "Mango" inhabited by fierce natives. That was apparently Mago Island in the Northern Lau Group in Fiji whose native population was displaced in the 1860s when Europeans moved in. Coincidentally it was three adventuresome young brothers who purchased Mago and landed there in their own boat a couple of decades after "The Coral Island" was written. Had they read Ballantyne's novel?? They made a fortune growing sea island cotton during the American Civil War. Mago Island and the plantation pioneered by the young Ryder brothers is today owned by the Tokyu Corporation of Japan and is practically uninhabited.
Rating: 
Summary: Ballantynes' loosely created Utopia
Review: R.M.Ballantynes' coral island is typical of Victorian age novels with loose and incoherent plot,lifeless & flat characters and involving a deep religious fervour.No doubt the credit goes to the writer for his first-hand knowledge about trees and his vivid description of the islands beauty and its surroundings.But at the same time, the author is to be castigated for creating characters whose chastiness supercedes that of Christ.Half naked girls fail to arouse them sexually.The barbaric fights in which they indulged with the savages did not affect their mentality and they remained jovial throughout the novel.I believe that the critics who declared it as a classical novel were either the relatives of the author or were paid by him.
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Summary: Astounding!!!! A real classical tale of shipwrecked people!!
Review: The story starts out when Ralph Rover {15 years old} following in his father's footsteps ventures out on the seas for the first time. The coaurse leads to the south pacific islands. While on board the ship Ralph makes 2 very good friends very brave and adventurous brave 18 year old Jack and 14 sneeky and humorous young Peterkin.The ship gets caught in a massive storm and the 3 young englishmen are washed along the shores of an island with fortunetely a ton of food!But after getting to cocky the paradise of an island becomes a warzone with a party of cannibal islanders and a large pirate ship coming towards them. Peterkin must encourage the and drive the other 2 friends for the will to build a boat and escape the paradise while Jack and Ralph must put thier knowledge of the world to help the 3 friends to survive.
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Summary: If Only All Desert Islands Were Like This One!!
Review: This is a story about a young 'wannabe' sailor called Ralph, who is suddenly thrown into survival mode, after he and two of his shipmates are the only survivors of a shipwreak in the South Seas. They are washed up with little more than the clothes on their back. This, however, is not a story of extreme hardship you might have expected. The three teenagers, seeing that they have been given the opportunity to live a once in a lifetime experience - and they tend to expoit it! With many adventures of discovery, bloodly battles, pirates and a cat! - it's clear from the start that this book is a book of fresh air from the usual run-of-the-mill survival stories. I'll not spoil the ending, but I do suggest you give this book a try - you won't regret it!!
Rating:
Summary: The Coral Island Book Review
Review: Wow! If you're the kind of person who likes survival and/or adventure stories, this is the book for you. That's one of the reasons I gave it a 5 star rating. It really applies to something that interests you in some way. I also gave it a 5 because of how realistic it made the characters in the story by including information about things like their backgrounds and characteristics in order for you to know them better. This book begins with Ralph Rover telling about his life. He is a 15 year old young man who is apart of a family, in which, sea life has existed for as far back as anyone can remember. So, of coarse, he too has it in him to sail the seas. He was at last, after much asking and hoping, was allowed to go to sea as a apprentice on a coasting vessel, a job his father gave him. On his trip he made two great friends. One was another young man named Jack Martin, that he describes as a tall, strapping, broad-shouldered youth of 18, who was good-humored and had a firm face. The other was Peterkin Gay, a little, quick, funny, and decidedly mischievous boy of 14. All was going well until they were caught in a huge storm and were the only people to wash ashore on a South Pacific island. On the island I enjoyed how they described a lot of the surrounding wildlife. Such as the sharks, green and red-breasted birds and certain doves. Also the plants like the palm trees and sugar-cane plants. This is my second reason for giving it a 5, because of the way the author included enough detail to hook you. But unfortunately for them, the natives on this island are cannibalistic and as they soon find out, pirates are headed their way. Ralph, Jack, and Peterkin have to put all their knowledge of the sea, plants, animals, shipbuilding, and all around survival in order to have a chance of escaping the island alive. Will they make it? Read the book and find out!
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