Meet the Cast
Mau
What teenage boy wouldn't want to be left alone on a deserted island with just one other person—a teenage girl—for company?Try Mau. The wave at the beginning of Nation changes Mau's entire life...
Daphne
Of all the 13-year-old white girls to wash up on a newly deserted island, Daphne is about the best you can hope for. Maybe the gods are looking out for Mau, after all.Not a Member of the Scooby Gan...
Ataba
Ataba is a priest of Mau's religion. The best we can say about him? He sure is dedicated to his gods—so dedicated that he'll destroy evidence that they're not real.Don't Unto OthersUntil the muti...
Pilu & His Family
If you have to be shipwrecked, you'd definitely want your family with you. Right? Right?? Well, it seems to work for Pilu & co. A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts Pilu, his brother Milo, and Milo's pre...
First Mate Cox and the Mutineers
No, First Mate Cox and the Mutineers isn't the hottest new band to sweep the Caribbean. (We wish.) They're actually a pretty nasty bunch of men who spread death and destruction—and First Mate Cox...
Mrs. Gurgle
Mrs. Gurgle is a strange old woman who washes up on the island. And we mean strange: "She had lost most of the hair on her head, moved on all fours like a chimpanzee, and looked as if she'd been ma...
Daphne's Grandmother
While we don't see Daphne's grandmother until the book's final chapter when she arrives with the Cutty Wren, we know enough about her before then to wish she'd just stayed home. As one of the Gentl...
Henry Fanshaw
Daphne's father is the man who will be king. Not because he's a king's son or anything. He's actually 139th in line, but a plague has wiped out the 138 people ahead of him. His own mother refers to...
The Sweet Judy
Okay, so the Sweet Judy is a boat—but if they're going to personify her so much, we're going to treat her like a character. They call ships "her" for a reason.Hey, JudeIn this case, the Sweet Jud...
The Raiders
When an NFL team from Oakland washes ashore things really start getting weird in Nation.Don't Raid on Our ParadeOkay, we're kidding. These are different Raiders: a cannibalistic tribe of nomads tha...
Granddad Nawi
It Takes a NationNawi is a character we never actually see: he's dead before the story even begins. But we learn a lot about the Nation by the way Mau thinks about Nawi and his stories. For example...