The year is 2072 and governments have changed to ensure that the devastating effects of Climate Change have been pulled back for all inhabitants of Earth. Life is now high tech and children are born with a chosen super power.

The Walker family in New Zealand are coastal rangers – protectors of the surrounding marine environment of where they live in Coromandel. Three sisters, Annie (15), Mia (13) and Zoe (10) live with their aunt and uncle, Pearl and Blake Walker, are constantly improving their skills as young coastal rangers. They all have their own special skills to add to the protection of this area.

Annie can step in the waters around their home and gills and fins will appear to enable her to swim underwater. She can also communicate with sea life.

Mia is incredibly smart, building tech for personal use and for security of their home compound.

Zoe, at only 10, can listen in on people’s thoughts.

These skills are all put to use when a strange submarine appears in the waters outside their home and they are attacked. This attack comes from one of the worst Anti Ec criminals they know. Dezi Krate is one of many in the opposite way of thinking – believing Climate Change is a hoax and wanting to continue in the exploitation of Earth’s resources for personal profit. He has his mind set on seabed mining in Coromandel and he has a plan in mind to get his way – kidnap one of the Walker siblings.

When he finally achieves his objective, snatching one of the siblings from right under the coastal ranger’s noses, he whisks her away to a man-made island. But he has under estimated the Walker family, and in fact his own son, Dom. Dom’s super power is an ability to change like a chameleon, and he puts this skill to good use. He has always been a believer of Climate Change and its effects, opposite to his greedy, powerful father. Dom is horrified at his father’s actions, thinking Dezi has gone a step too far. He dives into a plan of his own.

Want action, superpowers, high tech, and hand to hand combat in a story? Kidnap at Mystery Island has all of these and so much more!

Set in a possible future where New Zealand has no mining, plastic, or toxic chemicals, this story is set in the marine scape of Coromandel. This book is not only for action lovers. Animal lovers will enjoy the interaction between girl and sea life, and Marvel fans can imagine themselves with their own super powers chosen for them by their parents. With both boy and girl heroes and more than one baddie to boo at, I was held from the first page to the last.

With all these captivating ingredients to this gripping story, it is no wonder that Kidnap at Mystery Island was the winner of the NZ Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award 2021.

Author – Carol Garden

Age – 9+

(2022, Scholastic NZ, New Zealand, Aotearoa, NZ, Future, Marine Life, Dolphins, Seals, Award Winner, Tom Fitzgibbon Award, Siblings, Family, Courage, Climate Change Deniers, Hoax, Technology, Submarines, Helicopter, Commandos, Weapons, Villain, Superpowers, Chameleon, Coromandel, Kidnap, Crime, Escape, Omniscient POV)