Save animals, save monsters, save ourselves
Monster Mission
Author: Eva Ibbotson
In Indonesia published as Misi Monster by Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Minette and Fabio never like their current ‘homes’. Minette because she has to shuttle between her dad’s and her mom’s - her divorced parents hate each other and each thinks know what’s best for their daughter, although their main concern is themselves. Fabio because he’s not happy to spend his time in a boarding school where he gets mocked just because he’s not quite English. He is the son of an aristocratic English father and a Brazilian dancer. His father has died, while his mother wanted to live with another man, so she sent Fabio to his English grandparents who think that education under strict rules is what a child needs.
But Minette and Fabio don’t know whether they love their new life in The Island, where the Aunts who kidnap them bring them to. They have to work hard there, helping the Aunts saving marine animals that are victims of environmental accidents and degradation. At least, the Island is far more beautiful than their parents and grandparents’ houses.
Only later do Minette and Fabio find out that the Island keeps more secrets than they know - that animals are not the only living things they have to help. There are magical creatures in the island, all suffering from the environmental disturbance caused by humans. The Aunts struggle hard to keep those creatures alive, but from TV documentaries that they watch, they are fully aware that creatures go extinct, and so do aunts - that’s why they must take and train children to replace them one day when they die. They don’t know that there is a more noble intention than that - an intention that they themselves don’t realize at first, an intention that is willed into them by a higher power for the good of the seas. But the aunts also don’t know that there are dangers waiting - in the form of human greed and money.
Eva Ibbotson managed to spin a beautiful and funny tale about issues concerning environment, family, race, and greed. (For me, the funniest part is when England is swept by the fear of kidnapping Aunts that the people become paranoid about aunts and so many aunts are wrongly arrested for crimes that they don’t do.) I was deceived at first though - when the secrets about monsters living in the Island are revealed so early in the book, I thought, "So what interesting things left in the rest of the book?" The latter parts of the book proved to be a fascinating journey through the Island, as the aunts and the children fight with all they might to keep dirty hands off the Island, because the destruction of the Island - and the little bundle of joy trusted into their hands - means that the world will too lose its hope.
Just like other Ibbotson’s books that I have read so far, we can sense what will happen next, but the way Ibbotson wrote the sequences leading to the events just makes us want to read more and more. The best thing I like about the book is its strong messages about the importance of keeping the environment safe. Although blatant enough, the messages are not forced down the throats of the readers. Instead, the book conveys them through describing the touching beauty of the creatures, and the magnificence of the most magical and powerful creature of them all - the kraken. Too bad that in the real world there is nothing like the kraken that can heal the world like it does. But hey, you get the message. In the real world, it’s not the kraken; it’s us human beings who have the responsibilities to save the world. At least for our own survival.
Monster Mission is translated well, but not too smooth. I don’t detect any mistranslation, but the Indonesian sentences are confusing sometimes, the result of a failure in translating or transposing the main parts of the sentences and the phrases. Instead of a full sentence with parts that explaining the main part, many sentences become nothing but baffling and tiring combinations of information in Indonesian, united by a set of commas. And no, pronoun redundancy is NOT correct and, more importantly, NOT nice to read. Since I have found the pattern in many children/teen books translated by GPU, somehow I think the oft-repeated mistake is the responsibility of the editor. Anyway, the Indonesian version of Monster Mission is still decent enough to read, especially if you compare it with many other sadly, poorly translated books currently published in Indonesia.
Author: Eva Ibbotson
In Indonesia published as Misi Monster by Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Minette and Fabio never like their current ‘homes’. Minette because she has to shuttle between her dad’s and her mom’s - her divorced parents hate each other and each thinks know what’s best for their daughter, although their main concern is themselves. Fabio because he’s not happy to spend his time in a boarding school where he gets mocked just because he’s not quite English. He is the son of an aristocratic English father and a Brazilian dancer. His father has died, while his mother wanted to live with another man, so she sent Fabio to his English grandparents who think that education under strict rules is what a child needs.
But Minette and Fabio don’t know whether they love their new life in The Island, where the Aunts who kidnap them bring them to. They have to work hard there, helping the Aunts saving marine animals that are victims of environmental accidents and degradation. At least, the Island is far more beautiful than their parents and grandparents’ houses.
Only later do Minette and Fabio find out that the Island keeps more secrets than they know - that animals are not the only living things they have to help. There are magical creatures in the island, all suffering from the environmental disturbance caused by humans. The Aunts struggle hard to keep those creatures alive, but from TV documentaries that they watch, they are fully aware that creatures go extinct, and so do aunts - that’s why they must take and train children to replace them one day when they die. They don’t know that there is a more noble intention than that - an intention that they themselves don’t realize at first, an intention that is willed into them by a higher power for the good of the seas. But the aunts also don’t know that there are dangers waiting - in the form of human greed and money.
Eva Ibbotson managed to spin a beautiful and funny tale about issues concerning environment, family, race, and greed. (For me, the funniest part is when England is swept by the fear of kidnapping Aunts that the people become paranoid about aunts and so many aunts are wrongly arrested for crimes that they don’t do.) I was deceived at first though - when the secrets about monsters living in the Island are revealed so early in the book, I thought, "So what interesting things left in the rest of the book?" The latter parts of the book proved to be a fascinating journey through the Island, as the aunts and the children fight with all they might to keep dirty hands off the Island, because the destruction of the Island - and the little bundle of joy trusted into their hands - means that the world will too lose its hope.
Just like other Ibbotson’s books that I have read so far, we can sense what will happen next, but the way Ibbotson wrote the sequences leading to the events just makes us want to read more and more. The best thing I like about the book is its strong messages about the importance of keeping the environment safe. Although blatant enough, the messages are not forced down the throats of the readers. Instead, the book conveys them through describing the touching beauty of the creatures, and the magnificence of the most magical and powerful creature of them all - the kraken. Too bad that in the real world there is nothing like the kraken that can heal the world like it does. But hey, you get the message. In the real world, it’s not the kraken; it’s us human beings who have the responsibilities to save the world. At least for our own survival.
Monster Mission is translated well, but not too smooth. I don’t detect any mistranslation, but the Indonesian sentences are confusing sometimes, the result of a failure in translating or transposing the main parts of the sentences and the phrases. Instead of a full sentence with parts that explaining the main part, many sentences become nothing but baffling and tiring combinations of information in Indonesian, united by a set of commas. And no, pronoun redundancy is NOT correct and, more importantly, NOT nice to read. Since I have found the pattern in many children/teen books translated by GPU, somehow I think the oft-repeated mistake is the responsibility of the editor. Anyway, the Indonesian version of Monster Mission is still decent enough to read, especially if you compare it with many other sadly, poorly translated books currently published in Indonesia.