A review by pennyriley
Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean

3.0

This Carnegie prize winner (for children and young adults) is loosely based on a true event that occurred in 1727, when three men and 8 boys were left on Warrior Stac in the St. Kilda Archipelago off the north coast of Scotland, for the annual bird hunt that provided food for the islanders of Hirta for the next winter. They are marooned there for nine months when the boat that should have picked them up does not return. There is both good and bad about this book. The writing is beautiful, and the detail that McCaughrean includes is breathtaking. How she found out about the technicalities of climbing the stac, for example, I have no idea. But to my mind the liberties she takes (even though so little is known) are at best unnecessary and at worst completely change what could have been. The book seems far too long. It is 336 pages and could probably have been done in a couple of hundred without losing anything - and gaining a lot of readers. I was a middle school LA teacher for many year and cannot see many of my students getting through this. Maybe more adults will read it, but I'm not sure.