Kid-me would have too - but kid-me would have a different series of questions! (I may have been thinking about this, and smiling at myself, because kid-me had different priorities, but was always interested in questions.)
1) What if the people didn't like their new name - especially the kids? Not everyone wants to be a letter and a number - did no one make a fuss about being D1 or T2?
2) If you were in trouble what would your parents call you? In the southern US one of the indicators that you were in big trouble was that your parents called you by your full name: "Jennifer Jefferson Daniels you get in the house this minute!" (Not my name, just an example.)
3) You can't call any of the kids nicknames derived from their names since the start of their name is a letter shared with the rest of their family.
4) What if you don't feel like eating the particular food from the designated restaurant that day? What if you just want some toast and scrambled eggs or something? (Kid-me was often overly particular about food.)
5) Did everyone really love running their own restaurant? Because it seems weird that every single family was into it. I wonder if the children would all be in agreement on this because I notice they're doing the work as well, and in general no one asks kids if they'd prefer to do things.
6) What if someone got sick? There are inventors and scientists, but no mention of doctors. And the inventors seem to invent things that aren't entirely practical. (Kid-me had some health related mishaps, as did my friends.)
7) The balloon merry-go-round seemed fun at first, but the kids are doing a lot of work dealing with it, and it seems like it'd be pretty easy to fall off of. None of the adults I know would ever let me use something like that without a lot of other adults supervising. (Kid-me would have a hard time figuring out if this was a good or bad thing, since adults were often a damper on doing fun things.)
8) It was pretty much accepted that in all the families all the children did work and were helpful. This seems weird - there are always children who are too little, or not good at things (and have a habit of breaking stuff) - so that some families would run short of help, and maybe one kid would be stuck doing the work for two.
As you can tell from all of this, kid-me was very much all about Grownups Rarely Listen to What Kids Think. Knowing the teachers I had, they'd take that and turn it around: why don't you write a story about what it'd be like to be a kid on that island, and what you would and wouldn't like? And then suddenly I'd really love the book. (This is a great teacher/parenting response by the way, for everything - go write a story and change what you don't like or that answers your questions. Most kids love this, or did in the classes I was in. Especially when teachers explain that when you write, you're in charge of what happens.)
My highschool teacher titled her assignment: Write Your Own Ending. We'd read the Vonnegut novel Cat's Cradle and many of us didn't like the "left hanging" type of ending. I had fun killing off the remaining characters with an attack of giant ants, which I shamelessly stole from the movie Them! Also because I couldn't come up with another giant-monster-attack scenario. Those don't come up very often in English lit classes.
Them! I love that movie! Very few people I know outside my family know about it.
I've not yet read this book. Someday soon I need to sit down and read the Newbury Awards through but I know some I won't like so I keep putting it off. I didn't realize it was connected to Krakatoa though, that should move it up my list. I've always been fascinated by that particular volcano.
The Winchester book on Krakatoa tells you everything you ever wanted to know - with a lengthy amount of geology and science, plus science history. You can really tell that the reason you have SO much detail about odd little bits of history and scientists is because he really enjoys the subjects - and he tells you quite a bit about his own history and studies in geology. I was really blown away (argh, unintentional pun, ouch) about what a wide effect Krakatoa had on so many fields: art, culture, news, science, weather, etc. The sunset paintings alone are fascinating.
It really did have basically a world-wide effect. I've heard of the book but not yet picked it up. I don't know that I've read a Windchester book before though I know he's written on topics I've looked into.
1) What if the people didn't like their new name - especially the kids? Not everyone wants to be a letter and a number - did no one make a fuss about being D1 or T2?
2) If you were in trouble what would your parents call you? In the southern US one of the indicators that you were in big trouble was that your parents called you by your full name: "Jennifer Jefferson Daniels you get in the house this minute!" (Not my name, just an example.)
3) You can't call any of the kids nicknames derived from their names since the start of their name is a letter shared with the rest of their family.
4) What if you don't feel like eating the particular food from the designated restaurant that day? What if you just want some toast and scrambled eggs or something? (Kid-me was often overly particular about food.)
5) Did everyone really love running their own restaurant? Because it seems weird that every single family was into it. I wonder if the children would all be in agreement on this because I notice they're doing the work as well, and in general no one asks kids if they'd prefer to do things.
6) What if someone got sick? There are inventors and scientists, but no mention of doctors. And the inventors seem to invent things that aren't entirely practical. (Kid-me had some health related mishaps, as did my friends.)
7) The balloon merry-go-round seemed fun at first, but the kids are doing a lot of work dealing with it, and it seems like it'd be pretty easy to fall off of. None of the adults I know would ever let me use something like that without a lot of other adults supervising. (Kid-me would have a hard time figuring out if this was a good or bad thing, since adults were often a damper on doing fun things.)
8) It was pretty much accepted that in all the families all the children did work and were helpful. This seems weird - there are always children who are too little, or not good at things (and have a habit of breaking stuff) - so that some families would run short of help, and maybe one kid would be stuck doing the work for two.
As you can tell from all of this, kid-me was very much all about Grownups Rarely Listen to What Kids Think. Knowing the teachers I had, they'd take that and turn it around: why don't you write a story about what it'd be like to be a kid on that island, and what you would and wouldn't like? And then suddenly I'd really love the book. (This is a great teacher/parenting response by the way, for everything - go write a story and change what you don't like or that answers your questions. Most kids love this, or did in the classes I was in. Especially when teachers explain that when you write, you're in charge of what happens.)
I don't remember the novel well enough to comment; I last read it in the mid-1970s.
Yeah, that would be a great teaching response: write your own story.
I've not yet read this book. Someday soon I need to sit down and read the Newbury Awards through but I know some I won't like so I keep putting it off. I didn't realize it was connected to Krakatoa though, that should move it up my list. I've always been fascinated by that particular volcano.