Young Martin had always wanted to be an explorer, and longs for a grand adventure - one that will bring him that "moment of delight" of which his father likes to speak. But what sort of adventure can an eleven-year-old boy have on caravan holiday, when his six-year-old sister Linda and his spoiled city-dog Ben are always tagging along? With an unexpected storm, a flooded river and estuary, and a stranded witch-girl-writer, quite an extraordinary one, as it turns out!

I first came across the children's author Rosalie K. Fry after seeing the movie The Secret of Roan Inish, which is based upon her novel, Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry (now sadly renamed after the movie...). As someone who loves folktales and stories about selkies, I was immediately captivated, and decided to seek out other books by this excellent, but now mostly forgotten, writer. Imagine my delight when I found September Island, which has the added charm of being illustrated by that wonderful artist Margery Gill, whose work graces most of the Ruth M. Arthur novels, as well as Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper.

This short novel was a pleasure to read, and served as a welcome reminder to me that children's books don't have to be epic-quest fantasies, or terribly serious "issue-driven" novels, to communicate something valuable about the state of childhood. I sometimes think that as adults, we look back upon childhood as a magical time, full of extraordinary discovery and high emotion. We forget that from the child's perspective, life can seem like a flat expanse, too infrequently punctuated by moments of extreme wonder. That childish longing for adventure, for the extraordinary, for "something to happen," is so perfectly expressed in September Island, that the fulfillment of the desire is deeply satisfying... ( )