Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz

In the summer of 2015 the Disney channel debuted an original movie titled Descendants.  On the night it aired I put my then 1 year old son to bed, made some popcorn, and sat down to watch the movie with my girls, ages 5 and 7 then.  We absolutely loved the movie. We watched it numerous times that summer, and my girls loved everything Descendants.  We found out about this book about the same time as the movie.  Given their ages then I wasn't in a real big hurry to run out and buy the book, and just never made it to the library toe check it out.

For my oldest daughter's 9th birthday I bought here the hardback copy of this book and the second book in the series Return to the Isle of the Lost.  She had expressed interest in reading this book and was finally getting good enough at reading I thought it might be at her level. She has yet to read the whole book, unfortunately.  She complained to me because it isn't like the movie from the beginning. I kept telling her to give it time, books are often better than the movie.

Then this summer I checked out a copy and read it for myself.  Wow, it was not at all what I was expecting.  It is an excellent book, that is well written for middle grade ages, but could also be easily enjoyed by anyone who loves the Disney characters.  As I started and made my way through the book I found myself agreeing with my daughter, it's nothing like the movie.  However, as an adult that has read enough books that has had a movie based on it, I knew that movies can never fit all of the information that the book has, so I kept going.  Eventually I realized that this book is not the book version of the Descendants movie at all.  It is in fact the prequel to the movie.  After realizing this it made so much more sense.  I explained it to my daughter, and she seems a little more excited about reading it now.

This book is an engaging story about Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay.  It tells the story of how they became friends on an island where friendship is kind of frowned upon and evil reigns.  It would be a great story for your middle grade children to read to themselves.  It would also be a great family read, a book for you to read aloud to your children for you all to enjoy.