Atlanta Author Presents Coming-Of-Age Allegory In ‘Orphan Island’
Atlanta author Laurel Snyder launches ”Orphan Island” at Little Shop of Stories on Saturday, June 3.
AL SUCH / WABE
The literary cannon has lots of examples of children stranded on islands, from “Lord of the Flies” to “Peter Pan” and beyond. Atlanta-based author Laurel Snyder offers her take on the idea in her new novel “Orphan Island” from Walden Pond Press.
“The goal was to write a book where there were no grown ups,” Snyder tells “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes. “But counter to something like ‘Lord of the Flies,’ I wanted it to be a kind of utopian world where the children really to care for each other.”
Orphan Island is about nine children who live on an island together. Once a year a small green boat arrives at the island with a three-year-old child in it, and with the introduction of a new kid, the oldest child has to get in the boat and leave. As the book opens, Jinny, the main character, is becoming the island’s elder as her best friend Dean leaves and a little girl named Ess comes ashore.
“It was important to me that this book stay an allegory,” Snyder says. “This book is really about Jinny leaving childhood and how hard that is. There’s something we do when we write for children — we as adults want to remember childhood as something easier or sweeter than it was.”
“The biggest challenge of writing for young people is we are writing in a language we don’t remember anymore,” she says. “We have to get our adult selves and adult needs and our own memories of childhood – those have to get out of the way.”
Laurel Snyder launches “Orphan Island” at Little Shop of Stories on Saturday, June 3.
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