This is a classic book that I'd never read. I had seen something about a Disney movie for it and it looked like a grand adventure of a tale. Indeed, it was. I'll share my reservations about the book in the "didn't like" section. Skipping those two things, it was a fantastic story about a family of six (dad, mom and four boys) who not only survive but thrive on an island considered to be uninhabitable (we find this latter part out at the end).

The father and learned son's knowledge of science and nature are astonishingly great and the whole family's resourcefulness and unity was excellent to me. The mother's knowledge of plants reminded me of my own mother.

More often than not, they were very good to the animals they took under their stewardship and that was very nice. They were exceptionally good towards each other and strong in their faith and possibly the hardest working group of people I remember reading about that weren't under a cruel dictator's rule. They worked hard and built up an amazing settlement because of that combination of applied intelligence and hard work.

People who like stories of faith, adventure, resilience, overcoming, classics, learning, problem solving, nature, animals, survival, family dynamics and/or just a good story.

The faith elements. They wouldn't be for everyone, but I loved it. It was more notable at the beginning of the book but mentioned here and there as a true part of their daily life throughout.

I loved the amazing wildlife on the island.

I loved the family's characters.

I loved the island itself.

Really, except for the things noted below that I specifically hated, I loved the whole book. It gave me many hours of enjoyable reading.

The unabridged version (I read the unabridged version but the version I read wasn't available for Amazon review so I picked the closest thing I could conveniently find to share here) is really much better suited to adults. Or at least an adult should supervise the reading of it, in my opinion. Unless the child is part of a regular hunting family and even then, the levels of violence towards animals were shocking at times. And cruel, in my opinion. Although the father (whose journal is was) made great efforts to be kind to animals, his idea of kindness and mine are very different.

Also, near the end of the book there is some marked racism. I guess they didn't think of it as racism then? But it felt nasty to me. I guess it's more the ignorant than hateful kind of racism but the book would definitely have been a lot better for me without these elements.

Know if there's a follow up book. Still need to check. I went to bed right after finishing it.

Like I was reading the father's journal and experiencing some of the adventure with them.

Very repulsed at the things I mentioned in the didn't like section.

is Jean Rudolph Wyss ... surprisingly I couldn't find a bio for him on Amazon or the publisher's website. But wikipedia had this: "Johann David Wyss (German: [ˈjoːhan ˈdaːfɪd ˈviːs]; May 28, 1743 – January 11, 1818) was a Swiss author, best remembered for his book The Swiss Family Robinson (Der schweizerische Robinson) (1812). He was born and died in Bern. It is said that he was inspired by Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, but wanted to write a story from which his own children would learn, as the father in the story taught important lessons to his children. The Swiss Family Robinson was first published in German in 1812 and translated into English two years later. It has since become one of the most popular books of all time. The book was edited by his son, Johann Rudolf Wyss, a scholar who wrote the Swiss national anthem. Another son, Johann Emmanuel Wyss, illustrated the book.[1] Unlike his son Johann Rudolf, who died at the age of 48, Johann David Wyss lived up to the age of 74, dying in 1818.

Wyss has been described as an author whose style was "firmly Christian and moral in tone".[2]There are also many underlying tones of Christianity throughout the book and in the case of many of the characters and their morals.
Influence

Jules Verne declared that The Swiss Family Robinson was one of his favorite books. He liked it so much that he wrote a sequel titled The Castaways of the Flag, published in 1900, many years after Wyss' death.
Notes

"Johann David Von Wyss." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009.
Dinah Birch, Katy Hooper. "The Concise Oxford hCompanion to English Literature". Oxford University Press. p. 696."

It is a grand adventure tale and has some great lessons about life and survival.

There is racism and animal cruelty.

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Created Oct 16, 2021 at 9:41pm • Submit your own review...