Sin Bin Island

LoveReading4Kids Says

September 2025 Debut of the Month

Sin Bin Island sees Doug Naylor, co-creator of Red Dwarf, make a memorably flamboyant first foray into writing for children. Thrilling, funny and filled with magic, mystery and maritime mayhem, it takes the classic trope of an orphaned child embarking on an adventure to unexpected, exhilarating extremes.  

After finding himself orphaned, Digs comes into possession of a Russian nesting doll with the power to advise, protect and predict the future just ahead of being sent to Cyril Sniggs's Correctional Orphanage for Wayward Boys and Girls — “a school founded on disciple and order. Many think it is the most unspeakable place on earth”, as one of the messages inside the all-knowing doll informs him. Cyril Sniggs’s also follows “a curriculum that’s more practical and maritime-themed” than most schools offer, on account of its founder having been a privateer.   

In real terms, this means Digs gets to study the likes of Celestial Navigation, Guns and Cannons and Ship-wreck Survival Skills. Related, pupils live under the sinister threat of being lashed, and banished to Sin Bin Island — a place that was once used to incarcerate pirates, smugglers and witches.

A place that’s said to have a secret tunnel that once served the purpose of smuggling magic into England. And that’s just one facet of the strangeness (and danger) that Digs and his new friends encounter when they arrive on Sin Bin Island, “its black rock shoreline towering over them” as the foul stench of rotten eggs fills their nostrils.  

Brimming with magical invention and danger, Sin Bin Island is also quirkily comic and loaded with larger-than-life characters.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen is a writer, reviewer and workshop presenter whose lifelong love of books began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About Sin Bin Island

At the end of each year, four pupils from Cyril Sniggs's Correctional Orphanage for Wayward Boys and Girls are banished to Sin Bin Island, an eerie place surrounded by eel-infested waters.Legend has it, the island has a secret tunnel, used to smuggle magic into mainland England. But in over 300 years the tunnel has never been found. Nor has any of the magic. This year, all that's going to change.

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