Six kids, Nick, J.J., Will, Lyssa, Charla, and Ian, are thrown together against their will on a small boat that will make a one-month journey on the Pacific Ocean. They have all been sent for different reasons. Luke is taking his only choice besides being sent to a juvenile detention facility for a crime he didn't commit. Will and Lyssa are quarreling siblings sent by their parents, who hope the trip will teach them to get along better. J.J. was sent by a movie-star father after he pulled one two many pranks. Ian's parents hoped to cure him of his TV addiction. Charla was sent because she was having an athletic "burnout." But these six totally different kids have to learn to work together to survive a vicious storm and a shipwreck that leave them stranded in the middle of the ocean with no food, no water, and almost no hope for survival.
Gordon Korman was born in Montreal, Quebec. In 1970, he relocated with his parents to Thornhill, Ontario. In 7th grade, he wrote a work that went on to become his first novel in a school writing assignment. It was published under the title *This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall* in 1978, when Korman was 14 years old. He wrote and published another four books while in high school.
After high school, he moved to New York City where he studied film and film writing at New York University. In 1985 he received his B.A. in Dramatic and Visual Writing. He has written more than 75 books. He lives in Great Neck, New York, with his wife and three children.