When I was a kid I got sick and had to be hospitalized for a few days. My mum gave me a book to read called Dolphin Island. This book transported me to an idealistic paradise.
A young boy from the US stows away on a trans-continental freight hovercraft which wrecks on a South Pacific island.
The story unfolds around a dolphin training program that the boy quickly adapts to. Eventually the boy is reconnected with his parents in the US, and, naturally the expectation is that he will have to leave his South Pacific paradise and return to a life of bland mediocrity.
A young boy from the US stows away on a trans-continental freight hovercraft which wrecks on a South Pacific island. The story unfolds around a dolphin training program that the boy quickly adapts to. Eventually the boy is reconnected with his parents in the US, and, naturally the expectation is that he will have to leave his South Pacific paradise and return to a life of bland mediocrity.
However, while they are relieved that he is alive and safe, the boy’s (foster) parents agree to let him stay on the island to work with the dolphins and his new friends.
This was my first introduction to the notion of leaving home and staying gone. It made a profound impression. This is a wonderful tale of adventure and innocence, and the possibility that you really can have your cake and eat it.
The fact that the book is about training dolphins is rather ironic, since my next passion is The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, in which dolphins are more intelligent than humans, and the prove it by leaving the Earth before it is destroyed by the construction of a Hyperspace Bypass.
Matty's Paradigm 