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Booksurfers
Booksurfers: Treasure Island
Jake, Becca, Ryan and Harriet are kidnapped by Dr Crookshanks and his accomplice, Professor Kaufman. Against their will, the gang have to jump 'into' the world’s best known adventure stories to steal important artefacts, using an incredible invention called the Nautilus. If they don't get what Crookshanks wants, what will he do to their parents? And what will Becca do without her dad's credit card?
Crookshanks explains that in order to keep their families safe, the children must bring him back the actual treasure map from Treasure Island. Their parents’ lives are in the hands of a complete madman! The Booksurfers have little time to argue. Before they know it, they are thrown into Treasure Island; they’re talking to Jim Hawkins, running away from pirates and risking their lives to get their hands on that map!
Ever wondered what it would be like to not just read a book, but actually experience it? Throughout these books you'll find something rather ingenious: hyperlinks. They're pretty easy to spot; look out for an underlined word or phrase or sentence. And whenever you see one, you can just click on it, and - KA-POW! - you'll be zipped into the actual book the Booksurfers are exploring at the exact point they are discovering it! Have fun tagging along; you never know what story you'll end up in next...
Crookshanks explains that in order to keep their families safe, the children must bring him back the actual treasure map from Treasure Island. Their parents’ lives are in the hands of a complete madman! The Booksurfers have little time to argue. Before they know it, they are thrown into Treasure Island; they’re talking to Jim Hawkins, running away from pirates and risking their lives to get their hands on that map!
Ever wondered what it would be like to not just read a book, but actually experience it? Throughout these books you'll find something rather ingenious: hyperlinks. They're pretty easy to spot; look out for an underlined word or phrase or sentence. And whenever you see one, you can just click on it, and - KA-POW! - you'll be zipped into the actual book the Booksurfers are exploring at the exact point they are discovering it! Have fun tagging along; you never know what story you'll end up in next...
303 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 14, 2011
6 people are currently reading
111 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 9, 2012
In Booksurfers: Treasure Island we are introduced to a team of young book loving characters: Jake, Becca, Ryan and Harriet. The foursome have been kidnapped from their respective homes by the totally nasty Dr Crookshanks, and his evil inventor accomplice Professor Kaufman. His demands are simple: using the Nautilus, an incredible gadget created by Kaufman that allows people to enter the story of any book they choose, he wants the children to enter Treasure Island and retrieve Billy Bones' map so that he can sell it for a huge fortune.
Unfortunately for Jake and his new friends they very quickly discover that this is not as simple as it sounds, and they can't just rock up at the first mention of the map in the story and nab it, as this would mean that the whole story would then cease to exist (what's the point of Treasure island without the map?), and therefore the map would be worthless. And so begins an exciting adventure for the 9+ age group that had me totally hooked.
But.... there is much more to Booksurfers than just the standard "send new characters in to old stories" plot that has been seen before, as this new story is littered with Kindle hyperlinks that when clicked take the reader to the original R.L. Stevenson text, and in some cases, he very cleverly works this original text into his new story, especially where some of the dialogue is concerned, although this latter aspect is much more evident in the sequel, Booksurfers: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. These hyperlinks take a little bit of getting used to as initially I was unsure how they would work (but then again, I am a lifelong reader who is pretty much set in his ways). After clicking on a few of them, and feeling that they distracted a little from the flow of the main Gatward story, I chose instead to ignore the majority of them. However, inquisitive young minds will, I am sure, make much better use of them than I did. What I did do though was as soon as I had finished Dave Gatward's story, I then felt compelled to read the full text of Treasure Island for the umpteenth time. Did I not mention that with the Booksurfers story you also get the full original text? A brilliant idea and a surefire way of encouraging a new generation of readers to read classic stories, without them feeling like they are being told to read them, as I am sure many would do the same as I did.
Treasure Island is one of my all-time favourite books, and I was initially a little concerned as to how I would feel about a modern day story interfering with my beloved classic. I had little to worry about as I loved it, especially with the way that the new characters occasionally interacted with the likes of Jim Hawkins, Blind Pew and Squire Trelawney in order to ensure that the story did not deviate from Stevenson's original.
Of course, when the foursome finally complete their allotted task they discover that Dr Crookshanks is not going to honour his initial promise to set them and their captive parents free, preferring instead to give them a list of other popular books, with an item to retrieve from each one. This leads us straight into the sequel, Booksurfers: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was published at the same time as the first book.
Unfortunately for Jake and his new friends they very quickly discover that this is not as simple as it sounds, and they can't just rock up at the first mention of the map in the story and nab it, as this would mean that the whole story would then cease to exist (what's the point of Treasure island without the map?), and therefore the map would be worthless. And so begins an exciting adventure for the 9+ age group that had me totally hooked.
But.... there is much more to Booksurfers than just the standard "send new characters in to old stories" plot that has been seen before, as this new story is littered with Kindle hyperlinks that when clicked take the reader to the original R.L. Stevenson text, and in some cases, he very cleverly works this original text into his new story, especially where some of the dialogue is concerned, although this latter aspect is much more evident in the sequel, Booksurfers: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. These hyperlinks take a little bit of getting used to as initially I was unsure how they would work (but then again, I am a lifelong reader who is pretty much set in his ways). After clicking on a few of them, and feeling that they distracted a little from the flow of the main Gatward story, I chose instead to ignore the majority of them. However, inquisitive young minds will, I am sure, make much better use of them than I did. What I did do though was as soon as I had finished Dave Gatward's story, I then felt compelled to read the full text of Treasure Island for the umpteenth time. Did I not mention that with the Booksurfers story you also get the full original text? A brilliant idea and a surefire way of encouraging a new generation of readers to read classic stories, without them feeling like they are being told to read them, as I am sure many would do the same as I did.
Treasure Island is one of my all-time favourite books, and I was initially a little concerned as to how I would feel about a modern day story interfering with my beloved classic. I had little to worry about as I loved it, especially with the way that the new characters occasionally interacted with the likes of Jim Hawkins, Blind Pew and Squire Trelawney in order to ensure that the story did not deviate from Stevenson's original.
Of course, when the foursome finally complete their allotted task they discover that Dr Crookshanks is not going to honour his initial promise to set them and their captive parents free, preferring instead to give them a list of other popular books, with an item to retrieve from each one. This leads us straight into the sequel, Booksurfers: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was published at the same time as the first book.
August 7, 2011
This is my first reading experience which is using the ebook as part of the story, rather than it just being the medium. Quite an interesting idea interlacing an adventure story on top of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island". It took me a while to work out how to make the book work best for me, and the method I chose was to read the whole of "Treasure Island" first and then read the booksurfing part whilst the underlying story was fresh in my mind. I'd originally tried to follow the links between the two stories but soon got quite lost. I don't remember ever reading "Treasure Island" and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can imagine that children reading the booksurfers books would inadvertently end up reading the classics without it feeling like homework or an English class, which is quite interesting. I'm not sure I'd read any more of them as I mainly chose to read this as I was curious about the overlaying idea rather than due to the nature of the story.
July 23, 2014
Kind of a fun immersion into literature the bad guy captures the children' spare to and will not release them until they get the treasure map from Treasure Island for him. Through a gadget, they are transported I to the actual story to fulfill the task.
The new story only takes up 37% of the book???the rest is the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Kind of good to include it.
The new story only takes up 37% of the book???the rest is the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Kind of good to include it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews