This was exciting and adventurous, but the ending was slightly unsatisfactory.

This book blew me away the first time I read it, and even now as an adult I still love reading it. The characters feel like real kids with real problems and imperfections. The descriptions are vivid. The science fiction aspects are thrilling and not dumbed down for kids. What I loved most was the question of what's real and what's hysteria, how the kids decide who and what to trust when they can't turn to adults anymore. Also check out Moonwind by the same author, which is almost as good.

Calling B for Butterfly is an absorbing science fiction story about a survivors from a space ship that was hit by an asteroid. The space ship was out of control and the survivors boarded a life ferry and were trying to get back to Earth. At first they thought it was hopeless, but they regained their confidence when they found the radio and called for help. The other space ship received the call and decided to rescue the life ferry. Even though it wasn't very exciting, it still has an interesting plot. If you like science fiction, you will like this book.

Since there was not a review on this book, I felt COMPELLED to write one. This is a must read for anyone living near High-tension Powerlines or near a Power Substation. This book is well written, with documentation of events that everyone should know about. Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) have been in the news for many years. The implications of the danger of EMF's and the Health-cancer threat is just too great to ignore. In this book the author documents real life experiences of people who have experienced "SHOCKING" events that have occurred to them after High-tension power lines came through their properties. These people lived under or near these lines. One of the most "SHOCKING" (literally) was the fact that the owner was unable to paint his tin roof without getting shocked until he had run a chain down his pants leg to keep him grounded! Big Business has spent a great deal of time and money to cover-up stories like this. I live in a state where power companies are very big business. Not only are they big business they have the legislators on their side. Congress has given Utilities the power of "eminent domain" where they can build these high tension power lines where ever they please. The people in this book were affected by this law that allows Utility Companies to condemn land. The people in this book didn't want power lines on their property, but power lines they got. Some paid for these lines with their lives. When this book was first published in 1973, one of the major power companies in my state bought every copy of this book they could find. Today, this book is still hard to find in many of my State's Public Libraries even though the author's other books are readily available. Does this tell you something? Power Companies feel very threatened by this book? This alone should make everyone rush out and buy it. Read it, share it, give a copy to your local library, community planning committee, and congressmen - urge them to read it. It is definitely a keeper-

The orginial version (1973) has lots of "shocking" pictures, the updated version (1992) has a wonderful review by Stewart Udall with a 20 year follow-up on the families from the original, some of whom developed cancer.

If you liked this book, I would recommend reading several books by Paul Brodeur. "Currents of Death," and "The Great Power Line Cover-up."

Actually, 1.5 stars is probably more appropriate because (a) the book does contain some interesting natural history factoids and (b) it is not as bad as "Paradise for Sale", another recent book about Islands.

The book consists of a series of travelogues full of the author's random observations about a number of islands: Iceland, Bermuda, Crete, Bali, Lombok, Madagascar, etc. As a clue to where the book is headed, the last chapter is about "earth". Yes, as you might guess from that fact, a principal theme is all the terrible things people (western people, mainly) are doing to the earth, as is evidenced by developments in individual island communities.

As mentioned above, there is some interesting canned natural history type information interspersed throughout the book, but there is very little structure - mostly whatever happened to strike the author at the time of her visit, or whatever random information she had about the destination that she assumes readers will not have. The chapter on iceland swings between recent volcanic activity and the fact that there used to be european colonies in Greenland and Leif Erikson discovered North America (i.e., rather than Columbus or the people who already lived there).

Her observations about the societies in the islands she visits are worthless and are almost a parody of well meaning but condescending and clueless western intellectual attitudes to non-western societies. One island has experienced improved economic development "because women have entered the work force and been freed of never ending childbirth and virtual slavery at home". As with most of this book, this is an unsupported assertion. Then, in Sri Lanka she is pleased by the sight of women laboring in the tea plantations "in their brightly colored sari", while the men do the "fun" jobs of fishing and digging for valuable stones (covered in mud in deep pits; sounds like fun, hey guys?). Bali and Lombok have happy, multicultural societies (laughable, given recent events in Indonesia). Ancient Minoan aristocrats led elegant lives, wore nice clothes and lived in nice houses (this is far enough in the past that the slavery, etc. part of that culture gets filtered out). Some statements are just plain idiotic: the people of Bali live "pleasant and enjoyable lives" - is the author giving up her culture to join them? I bet many of them would gladly trade places with her. "Simple devices made of aluminum foil can be used to cook food using sunlight instead of cutting down trees for wood". Is the author using this device every day at home? At night? On rainy days?

Even the environmental analysis is spotty and judgment-laden: slash and burn agriculture by substinence farmers is bad, land that has been cleared for tea plantations in Sri Lanka or terraced for mono-culture rice farming in Bali seems okay because they make the scenery pretty. Animals which float to islands on natural rafts in storms and adapt to the new environment are okay, but dogs brought by westerners and adapt by wiping out indigent species are bad.

The ironic thing is that in one of the last chapters about coral atolls, she notes that coral is already growing around the sunken ships in the Bikini atoll despite the area having been NUKED repeatedly. So much for the rest of her statements about all the terrible things western culture is supposedly doing to the "fragile" environment.

In closing she states that the earth is an island and "time is running out". Typical apocolyptic environmentalism by someone who clearly needs to believe that events she witnesses during her life time, and therefor her participation are somehow more significant than any other period of time.

The book gives a great overview of a variety of islands, their habitats and wildlife, and the challenges facing them.