Island of the Aunts

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Island of the Aunts (ISBN 9780525464846, 1999) is a children's book written by Eva Ibbotson. It was also published under the title Monster Mission. It was a Publishers Weekly bestseller^[1] and a School Library Journal Best Book of 2000^[2].

[edit] Plot

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An uncharted island is home to six humans - widower Captain Harper, an old man at the ripe age of one hundred and three, Sybil, a strange cousin who supposedly can predict the future, a chef named Art who supposedly committed murder, and the three Aunts. Etta is a tall woman with a small moustache. She is very physically fit and owns thirty or so pairs of the exact same clothes. She is the eldest of the sisters living on the island, and can be a bit intimidating. Coral is a very artistic woman who gathers shells and dances tango by the light of the full moon. Myrtle is the youngest and probably most sensitive. She keeps orphaned ducklings in her socks and plays cello to a seal named Herbert.

They take care of injured and sick creatures, but the work is getting too much for them so they go to London to kidnap children. They think that adults can't keep a secret, and in Etta's words, 'It's not really a kidnap. It's more of a childsnatch'. Whatever it is, though, it's illegal.

Etta kidnaps a young girl named Minette, whose parents are separated. Coral brings a boy named Fabio, from London (formerly Brazil), where he is learning to be an "English gentleman" at the horrible Graymarsh Towers) to the island. And Myrtle is forced to bring a boy named Lambert, whom she thinks is horrid, after he sniffs something drugged.

On the island, the children are quickly put to work, including carrying stranded jellyfish back to the sea and holding an eel with scabies. Meanwhile, Lambert is kept in his room because he refuses to help. One day, though, Etta takes them to the de-oiling shed -- and everything changes after that.

Instead of oiled seabirds, there is a small family of mermaids, including twins Oona and Queenie, great grandmother Ursula, mother Lorraine and her spoiled child Walter. After meeting the mermaids, nothing is the same. They're soon meeting the Stoorworm, a wingless Icelandic dragon, the egg-bound boobrie (a bird apparently similar to the dodo, but vastly larger) and even talking with the selkies, seals like Herbert who can change into humans.

After some time, the Great Kraken begins swimming the seas to bring peace to the waters once more. Initially accompanied with his child, he leaves it with the Aunts because it is too young to travel the world with its father.

Lambert, though, finally gets a hold of his cellphone, which he uses to call his father, Mr. Sprott, who sees the mysterious creatures on the Island as a business opportunity. Having captured them all, they are eventually rescued by the Kraken, returning for his son.

The "kidnapping" revealed by Mr. Sprott, aunts Etta and Coral are put on trial. Minette and Fabio, however, present an argument that convinces the jury that they are innocent, and vow that they will one day return to the Island.