History Literature / DrFranklinsIsland

* FollowTheLeader: After the success of ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', several books aimed at the same demographic were written about kids transforming into animals. ''Dr. Franklin's Island'' is among them.

* EveryoneHasStandards: After they have a scare with a snake, Arnie taunts the girls; Miranda is coolly contemptuous when he tries to get at her by calling her a scaredy-cat, so he switches to laughing that Semi is almost BlindWithoutEm. Semi, who'd been pretending to see everything the others saw, runs away in tears. The other two catch up to her and Arnie not-quite-apologizes, saying he probably wouldn't have seen a grass-colored snake in grass bedding either.

* {{Fingore}}: The body that disturbs Miranda is the Girl-Who-Waves, a corpse propped up in coral so waves move her arms and she looks like she's trying to beckon for help, and whose hands are a ruin of reddish 'fronds'.

* FollowTheLeader: After the success of {{Literature/Animorphs}} several books aimed at the same demographic were written about kids transforming into animals. ''Dr. Franklin's Island'' is among them.

Semi, Miranda, and Arnie are part of a group of 50 British Young Conservationists on their way to a wildlife conservation station deep in the rain forests of Ecuador. After a terrifying mid-air disaster and subsequent crash, these three are the sole survivors, stranded together on a [[DesertedIsland deserted tropical island]]. Or so they think. Semi, Miranda, and Arnie stumble into the hands of Dr. Franklin, a MadScientist who’s been waiting for them, eager to use them as specimens for his experiments in genetic engineering.

!!This series provides examples of:

* AndIMustScream: Semirah is turned into a creature like a small manta ray. Waking up like this she's dazed and oddly happy but when she encounters Miranda and realizes how separated they are - can't breathe the same thing, no hands, no voice - she is horrified and does indeed try to scream. For a while she's able to rely on her fish instincts to be relatively happy in a small pool, but that starts to crack. [[spoiler: Arnie is turned into a giant snake and kept coiled up, unable to move, or speak, or read. He's in a bad state by the time he's found.]]

* CursedWithAwesome: Miranda-the-bird's form seems much easier to live with than Semi-the-fish's [[spoiler: or Arnie-the-snake's]] - she's lost her arms to wings, but can easily fly and her feet are constructed like hands, though scaled and taloned. She can't talk, though, [[spoiler: and she starts losing her mind]].

* MixAndMatchCritters: The transgenic animals were all given human DNA. Some appear unchanged, but those that are changed are each species changed the same way - all altered pigs have human hands, bats have human legs, parrots have bare patches of skin and floppy excess flesh. The castaways are given mixtures of animal DNA and so even though Semi resembles a manta ray she has a sting in her tail, and Miranda doesn't closely resemble any given bird.

* NoPeriodsPeriod: While salvaging the wreck of the plane, the castaways find a bag that appears to have been invaded by a fluffy white sea creature - the tampons in it had absorbed seawater and expanded into a shaggy mass. The girls don't get their periods while stranded on the beach, which they speculate is the result of losing a lot of weight on the limited food they're able to find.
* ObfuscatingInsanity: After it looks like Semi [[spoiler: is going to get to turn back]] and Miranda won't, Miranda starts having episodes of acting like just a smart bird, like she's lost her human mind, and doesn't answer radio hails. These get longer until it seems like she's gone - in fact she ''is'' slipping, but is still able to hold on to a purpose and formulate a plan.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: [[spoiler: Arnie mentions that when he was captured and told what was about to happen to him, he escaped and actually managed to flee the compound into the part of the island where staff and staff families live. Unlike Semi and Miranda, he does know some Spanish and so was able to talk to a woman and beg for help - unfortunately as the staff regard Dr. Franklin with great respect, she locked Arnie into a bedroom and called for him to be taken back to the compound, where he was kept restrained.]]

* PoorCommunicationKills: Semi and Miranda become so utterly paranoid of being spied on - and as time goes on [[TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody increasingly clouded by animal thoughts]] - that they won't talk to each other about escape plans. They both know they've picked up on things that they absolutely can't convey obliquely, but nothing much comes out until the end.

* ReluctantMadScientist: Doctor Skinner becomes reluctant only when they start testing on unwilling teenagers - and even then after a token effort to help them, he works with Doctor Franklin anyway.

* SuperHumanTrafficking: Of a sort. [[spoiler: Arnie]] overhears speculative plans to refine the process first tested on the girls into something that could be sold as two-week vacation packages: take some pills or a shot and wake up winged or gilled and spend a while exploring the Grand Canyon or a coral reef, then be turned back.
* TalkingThroughTechnique: After being transformed the girls become paranoid and gradually go from only talking about escape obliquely to not speaking out loud at all, communicating only through body language. Despite being a bird and a manta ray they're emotionally close enough to get some things across - though, this is limited and [[NonVerbalMiscommunication frustrating]].
** Before the transformations, because the girls are cooperative they're put in rooms they compare to a hotel suite and told not to try to talk to the the orderlies cleaning the rooms and bringing them meals. After they're sternly warned that another attempt will have them put in straitjackets and imprisoned separately, they comply - except that whenever they're given food they really dislike they "mutilate" it with toothpaste and conditioner and the rejected food is not offered again. Since that's not conducive to escape or to suborning the staff, Doctor Franklin allows it.

* UnreliableNarrator: Suggested all over the place. When they compare stories after the plane crash, Semi and Miranda remember contradicting events leading up to it. The two keep a count of days which ends up quite off. Semi is nearsighted and has to rely on Miranda telling her what she sees at a distance until she becomes a fish - then, her eyesight is crystal clear, but she's confined to a pool and must still rely on others to tell her what happens in the world outside of what she can see poking her eyes above the water. Throughout the book she doesn't know how much to trust of anything that people are telling her.

* [[WasOnceAMan Was Once A Teenaged Girl]]: Doctor Skinner is horrified when he goes to see Semi-the-fish, saying he remembers what she looked like, he thinks he saw her smile once.

* VoluntaryShapeshifting: It's hinted at the end that there are certain triggers or things each teenager might be able to use to turn back.