Abel’s Island

Rating: ★★★☆ (“better,” a worthwhile read)

Abel’s Island, by William Steig (Newbery Honor Book, 1976) is a simple but charming castaway tale about a well-meaning but rather foppish and over-privileged mouse who is swept away from a picnic with his young bride by an unexpected flood. He spends a year marooned on a small island, facing various dangers and challenges, until he finally becomes determined (or desperate) enough to swim to the mainland and reach home.

The story is straightforward enough to appeal to a very young child – what kid doesn’t secretly believe he’d thrive on a desert island? – but also offers enough subtle humor to engage an older child, or to keep a read-aloud parent entertained. Steig manages to tell the story exclusively from Abel’s own point of view, but still convey Abel’s moral failings and growth through the story. Abel is basically good-hearted, and madly in love with his young wife Amanda, but he is also spoiled, self-centered and aimless. On his island he discovers a previously untapped well of resourcefulness and industry, and finds time for enough introspection to discover that he’s not the center of the universe – so much so that by the time he’s nearly home, he suddenly realizes Amanda may have moved on without him. (Happily, she hasn’t – as an adult reader, I was half afraid she would have, given the book’s early hints that the marriage might not be as solid as Abel thinks it is…)

But this gives the wrong impression; there’s no heavy-handed moralizing. Steig has an unfailingly light touch, and even at his silliest, Abel’s foibles are more charming than off-putting, perhaps because he rather resembles little boys everywhere: affectionate, impulsive, overconfident and full of bravado. Steig’s own whimsical black-and-white illustrations – in line-drawing and ink wash – are dynamic and often add a touch of irony beyond the written text. Like all Steig’s work, this book somehow manages to be both off-beat to the point of the absurd, and yet at the same time, elegantly understated.