The Coral Island are, in his own words, "adventure stories for young folks", and "The Coral Island" is no exception. It is a Robinsonade, a genre of fiction inspired by Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1719), one of the most popular of its type, and one of the first works of juvenile fiction to feature exclusively juvenile heroes. Susan Maher, professor of English, notes that in comparison to "Robinson Crusoe" such books generally replaced some of the original's romance with a "pedestrian realism", exemplified by works such as "The Coral Island" and Frederick Marryat's 1841 novel "Masterman Ready, or the Wreck of the Pacific".
The Island (Benchley novel) The Island (Benchley novel) The Island is a novel by Peter Benchley, published in 1979 by Doubleday & Co. Blair Maynard, a divorced journalist in New York City, decides to write a story about the unexplained disappearance of yachts and other small boats in the Caribbean, hoping to debunk theories about the Bermuda Triangle. He has week-end custody of his preadolescent son Justin, and decides to mix a vacation with work, taking his son along. They fly from Miami to the Turks and Caicos island chain but, while on fishing trip, are captured by a band of pirates. The pirates