What Makes a Young-Adult Novel? 
 Although this is clearly marketed as a young-adult book, I was attracted to its subject and so ordered it. And read it with great pleasure, too, all the time wondering why it had this classification. Well, the protagonist, Evan Griffin is still a teenager at 16--but in Toronto where he lives, that is apparently old enough not to be taken into care when his father dies. And that's the first thing that is surprisingly mature about the book: it opens with the death of Evan's father, who had brought him up alone since childhood in a remarkably close relationship. Evan can cope remarkably well in the house, but he needs to call in his grandfather to help with the legal work. And there's the problem: "Griff," as he was called, is a retired Sergeant Major of Marines; Evan's father, a Vietnam draft-dodger, rebelled against his spit-and-polish style, and now the grandson has inherited that legacy of hate. Though Griff may be a little stereotypical, there are surprisingly adult themes here. 
 Just before he died, Evan's father had been sent a privately-printed book called "Kokoro-Jima, the Heart-Shaped Island." It is the account of a Japanese soldier marooned on an island not far from Tinian during the Pacific War, and his encounter with an American airman whose plane crashed there. It is a kind of Robinson Crusoe story, and a terrific one, though distinguished by two features. One--again mature and very instructive--is the portrayal of both Japanese and American actions in the Second World War, a realistic background that the author makes no attempt to sanitize. The other is the thing that most clearly qualifies the book for young-adult status: the island is also populated by creatures of fantasy--the ghosts of the unborn, the ghosts of the never-to-be-born, and a monster they call Tengu. Normally such elements would turn me off, but so strong is Wynne-Jones' writing that I took it all in my stride. 
 It soon becomes clear that Griff, whose role in the WW2 story appears only later, is determined to prevent the full publication of the book, which sets him into further conflict with his grandson Evan. Alas, although I was fully prepared to give the book five stars most of the way through, I found that the resolution of this conflict and the eventual rapprochement between old man and boy lacked the density of most of the earlier writing, and involved the last-moment introduction of quite another plot strand. So while I would still recommend the book for young adult readers, I cannot quite give the five stars on my own.