We meet poor old Gordon Stevens departing with his Grade 7 classmates for a week-long field trip to an island. Unfortunately, before he gets on the bus, Gordon and the reader have to endure good-byes from his divorcing parents who ooze clichés from every pore. Mom is a shrill martyr who actually counts his underwear in public; self-involved dad has dumped his family for a convertible and a blonde. The only connections Gordon has managed at his new school are with two outsiders – Mike, who has shaved off his hair, and Chuckie, who dyed his green. We never really find out why Gordon’s peers loathe him or why Mike and Chuckie are such strays.

This is Eric Walter’s sixth book. An award-winning writer and teacher, he is sure of his turf and it shows. Yet in a story whose publicity promises action, adventure, an environmental mystery, a ghost tale, and a budding romance, Stranded suffers from a few too many threads and not enough weaving. Where it finally works, and grippingly so, is almost halfway through when the kids stumble across the majestically tragic sight of seven beached pilot whales. After their initial discovery, they watch in frozen horror as whale after whale purposefully beaches itself. Each kid is tested in a race against time as Walters turns Stranded into a page-flipping summer beach book.