To one desert island, add some washed-up representatives of the human race. See how long they last. It’s a formula that worked for Robinson Crusoe, Lord of the Flies, and last year’s Survivor series. Now in Island I: Shipwreck, the always-popular Gordon Korman jumps on board this hot genre.

Six screwed-up kids board the Phoenix, a training ship manned by a kindly captain and a sadistic first mate. The penitential South Seas cruise is based on the concept that raising and lowering sails in cramped quarters is character-building. The kids have problems ranging from violent sibling rivalry to burnout. Two of them, a TV junkie and the son of a movie superstar, can’t tell the virtual world from reality.

The crew cope with blisters and seasickness, kibbitzing and throwing around one-liners in the sitcom manner that passes for preteen speech. Then comes the perfect storm. By the final pages the Phoenix is driftwood, and two kids are presumably fish food. Is it really the end for JJ and Lyssa? Or are they safe in the hands of some special-effects guys? And if they’ve drowned, why is there a picture of six kids on a desert island on the back cover?

Korman does a good job of connecting us with his young characters, especially through their harrowing days adrift, but Shipwreck left me with a frustrating sense of incompletion. This was intensified by the publisher’s failure to explain adequately anywhere on the book that it’s the first instalment in a trilogy. For that information, readers must consult Scholastic’s web site. And what happened to that big yellow life raft anyway?