A wonderful, unique story of adventure and fantasy, with a page-turning plot that compels the reader to fantasize every story line in the book. With a number of cliffhangers, the writer makes the reader always want to know what will happen next. The story is full of unexpected events, twists and turns, especially after the fire at the Academy. The novel activates the readers’ imaginations while, at the same time, developing their emotional intelligence and influencing the all-round development of their personality.
The Very Special Dutch East India Academy is an engaging, emotional and inspirational book that assists emotional recognition and acceptance, contributes to self-improvement and cultivates empathy. Combining the imaginary with the real, the novel cultivates the mental powers of readers such as will, optimism, hope; and it allows for several moral values to emerge: love and self-sacrifice, faith, friendship, courage, ingenuity, generosity, compassion, kindness, altruism; together with the joy and spontaneity that are quite natural to kids. Furthermore, it supports the formation of subject, social, communicative, life competencies; indicatively, the sense of community, the teamwork of the children despite their different characters, the cooperation through the exploitation of the special gifts of each child, the respect for each other's relationships as well as for all those they come across, both younger and older, the love and sensitivity for the environment and, mostly, the continuous but unintentional striving for self-improvement in their efforts to help those in need, and to achieve noble purposes. However, the author manages to engage young readers in the breathtaking adventures with her amazing narrative skill, and thus she succeeds in inspiring values and principles, enhancing competencies and influencing the shaping of young readers’ characters in a natural and never didactic way.
Furthermore, The Very Special Dutch East India Academy may also be described as an informative, thought-provoking and educational book. It carries readers to such places as Indonesia and India, or the Eternal Forest of Kerala, where they meet people and their ethnographic peculiarities, as in the village of Kampung Naga and the Iroula. It engages the reader in a history that is not widely known, relating to the West India company, and encouraging them to delve into historical events not directly related to those usually taught in school. It engages them in the world of business and economics, introducing the terms of shares and share certificates and opening new roads to explore in learning. It sensitizes the young reader to ecological issues, such as the protection of tropical forests, the value of our water and air, the protection of fauna and flora.
The author of The Very Special Dutch East India Academy reveals a wide field of meanings, actions and values throughout the book, succeeding in developing the multi-layered relationships that connect the reader with the book and aspiring to bring back the lost aimer lire (love for reading).
The Very Special Dutch East India Academy has been described by readers as a modern, innovative combination of Children’s Fantasy Fiction and Jules Verne’s adventure stories that inspires its young readers to push their own boundaries.
G.S. Karagouni describes it as a time and space travel fantasy adventure with a whiff of nostalgia for J. Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires but brought right up to date for all those brilliant young readers who use ‘alternative ways’ to travel.
The Very Special Dutch East India Academy is an enjoyable, compelling, action-packed, must-read book that girls and boys will love.
Evi Mpoumpoulis
MSc, Teacher of Primary Education, beta reader
