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Island of the Blue Dolphins (Paperback)
by Scott O'Dell
| Category:
Self-help, Story, Award-winning books, Ages 9-12, Children's book |
| Market price: ¥ 88.00
MSL price:
¥ 78.00
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A gripping story of battling wild dogs and sea elephants, and also an uplifting adventure of the spirit. |
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Author: Scott O'Dell
Publisher: Yearling; Reissue edition
Pub. in: March, 1971
ISBN: 0440439884
Pages: 192
Measurements: 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00032
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- Awards & Credential -
The winner of Newberry Medal for Best Children's Book |
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- MSL Picks -
Scott O'Dell won the Newbery Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1961, and in 1976 the Children's Literature Association named this riveting story one of the 10 best American children's books of the past 200 years.
The Island of the Blue Dolphins is not the story of a foolish young girl who missed the boat when the island was being evacuated. Far from it, Karana was on the boat. Her playful little brother, Ramo, wasn't. He was only 6 years old and could never survive alone. She jumped off and headed to shore to save him. The boat left.
Every little girl or boy has been alone, frightened without a clear way of finding his or her way home. Often, the problem is fixed by turning the next corner, finding out it is the same neighborhood it has always been. In the case of The Island of the Blue Dolphins, Karana's home never changes. Everyone she knows and loves, however, leaves.
For 18 years Karana took care of herself, and she grows from a preteen child into a woman just entering her 30s. This is that story, filled with adventures similar to "Robinson Crusoe," another true story set to fiction. Fans of "Swiss Family Robinson," will likewise enjoy this.
Karana's ingenuity to survive is surpassed by her tenacity and hope. Weathering hard circumstances, such as wild dogs, storms and the constant need to find fresh food and good water, she uses what she learned from her parents and other villagers before the left, and what she learns by trial an error.
As exciting as Treasure Island, only with a female protagonist, the book is more than a tale of heroics. Scott O'Dell's keen sense of description separates this from the rest of the bookshelf. Although sensitive that his reader is younger, he still manages to place to reader in the story, imagining the smell of sea or hearing the not-so-far off bark of wild dogs.
Like other classics as "Old Yeller" and "My Brother Sam Is Dead," not everything comes easily to Karana. There are somber times when people leave, when her brother dies, or when things look bleak. O'Dell tells the story as realistically as he can, which makes the happy times happier.
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell won "The Newberry Medal for Best Children's Book" for good reason.
Target readers:
Kids aged up 8
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Scott O'Dell was born in Los Angeles, California, on May 23, 1898. He attended Occidental College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Stanford University, and University of Rome. He worked as a technical director for Paramount, a cameraman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and a book editor of a Los Angeles newspaper before serving in the United States Air Force during World War II. The recipient of numerous book awards, he established the Scott O'Dell award for historical fiction in 1981. He died on October 15, 1989.
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In the Pacific there is an island that looks like a big fish sunning itself in the sea. Around it, blue dolphins swim, otters play, and sea elephants and sea birds abound. once, Indians also lived on the island. And when they left and sailed to the east, one young girl was left behind.
This is the story of Karana, the Indian girl who lived alone for years on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. Year after year, she watched one season pass into another and waited for a ship to take her away. But while she waited, she kept herself alive by building shelter, making weapons, finding food, and fighting her enemies, the wild dogs. It is not only an unusual adventure of survival, but also a tale of natural beauty and personal discovery.
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I remember the day the Aleut ship came to our island. At first it seemed like a small shell afloat on the sea. Then it grew larger and was a gull with folded wings. At last in the rising sun it became what it really was-a red ship with two red sails.
My brother and I had gone to the head of a canyon that winds down to a little harbor which is called Coral Cove. We had gone to gather roots that grow there in the spring.
My brother Ramo was only a little boy half my age, which was twelve. He was small for one who had lived so many suns and moons, but quick as a cricket. Also foolish as a cricket when he was excited. For this reason and because I wanted him to help me gather roots and not go running off, I said nothing about the shell I saw or the gull with folded wings.
I went on digging in the brush with my pointed stick as though nothing at all were happening on the sea. Even when I knew for sure that the gull was a ship with two red sails.
But Ramo’s eyes missed little in the world. They were black like a lizard’s and very large, and like the eyes of a lizard, could sometimes look sleepy. This was the time when they saw the most. This was the way they looked now. They were half-closed, like those of a lizard lying on a rock about to flick out its tongue to catch a fly.
“The sea is smooth,” Ramo said. “It is a flat stone without any scratches.”
My brother liked to pretend that one thing was another.
“The sea is not a stone without scratches,” I said. “It is water and no waves.”
“To me it is a blue stone,” he said. “And far away on the edge of it is a small cloud which sits on the stone.”
“Clouds do not sit on stones. On blue ones or black ones or any kind of stones.”
“This one does.”
“Not on the sea,” I said. “Dolphins sit there, and gulls, and cormorants, and otter, and whales too, but not clouds.”
“It is a whale, maybe.”
Ramo was standing on one foot and then the other, watching the ship coming, which he did not know was a ship because he had never seen one. I had never seen one either, but I knew how they looked because I had been told.
“While you gaze at the sea,” I said, “I dig roots. And it is I who will eat them and you who will not.”
Ramo began to punch at the earth with his stick, but as the ship came closer, its sails showing red through the morning mist, he kept watching it, acting all the time as if he were not.
“Have you ever seen a red whale?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, though I never had.
“Those I have seen are gray.”
“You are very young and have not seen everything that swims in the world.”
Ramo picked up a root and was about to drop it into the basket. Suddenly his mouth opened wide and then closed again.
“A canoe!” he cried. “A great one, bigger than all of our canoes together. And red!”
A canoe or a ship, it did not matter to Ramo. In the very next breath he tossed the root in the air and was gone, crashing through the brush, shouting as he went.
I kept on gathering roots, but my hands trembled as I dug in the earth, for I was more excited than my brother. I knew that it was a ship there on the sea and not a big canoe, and that a ship could mean many things. I wanted to drop the stick and run too, but I went on digging roots because they were needed in the village.
By the time I filled the basket, the Aleut ship had sailed around the wide kelp bed that encloses our island and between the two rocks that guard Coral Cove. Word of its coming had already reached the village of Ghalas-at. Carrying their weapons, our men sped along the trail which winds down to the shore. Our women were gathering at the edge of the mesa.
I made my way through the heavy brush and, moving swiftly, down the ravine until I came to the sea cliffs. There I crouched on my hands and knees. Below me lay the cove. The tide was out and the sun shone on the white sand of the beach. Half the men from our village stood at the water’s edge. The rest were concealed among the rocks at the foot of the trail, ready to attack the intruders should they prove unfriendly.
As I crouched there in the toyon bushes, trying not to fall over the cliff, trying to keep myself hidden and yet to see and hear what went on below me, a boat left the ship. Six men with long oars were rowing. Their faces were broad, and shining dark hair fell over their eyes. When they came closer I saw that they had bone ornaments thrust through their noses.
Behind them in the boat stood a tall man with a yellow beard. I had never seen a Russian before, but my father had told me about them, and I wondered, seeing the way he stood with his feet set apart and his fists on his hips and looked at the little harbor as though it already belonged to him, if he were one of those men from the north whom our people feared. I was certain of it when the boat slid in to the shore and he jumped out, shouting as he did so.
His voice echoed against the rock walls of the cove. The words were strange, unlike any I had ever heard. Slowly then he spoke in our tongue.
“I come in peace and wish to parley,” he said to the men on the shore.
None of them answered, but my father, who was one of those hidden among the rocks, came forward down the sloping beach. He thrust his spear into the sand.
“I am the Chief of Ghalas-at,” he said. “My name is Chief Chowig.”
I was surprised that he gave his real name to a stranger. Everyone in our tribe had two names, the real one which was secret and was seldom used, and one which was common, for if people use your secret name it becomes worn out and loses its magic. Thus I was known as Won-a-pa-lei, which means The Girl with the Long Black Hair, though my secret name is Karana. My father’s secret name was Chowig. Why he gave it to a stranger I do not know.
The Russian smiled and held up his hand, calling himself Captain Orlov. My father also held up his hand. I could not see his face, but I doubted that he smiled in return.
“I have come with forty of my men,” said the Russian. “We come to hunt sea otter. We wish to camp on your island while we are hunting.”
My father said nothing. He was a tall man, though not so tall as Captain Orlov, and he stood with his bare shoulders thrown back, thinking about what the Russian had said. He was in no hurry to reply because the Aleuts had come before to hunt otter. That was long in the past, but my father still remembered them.
“You remember another hunt,” Captain Orlov said when my father was silent. “I have heard of it, too. It was led by Captain Mitriff who was a fool and is now dead. The trouble arose because you and your tribe did all of the hunting.”
“We hunted,” said my father, “but the one you call a fool wished us to hunt from one moon to the next, never ceasing.”
“This time you will need to do nothing,” Captain Orlov said. “My men will hunt and we will divide the catch. One part for you, to be paid in goods, and two parts for us.”
“The parts must be equal,” my father said.
Captain Orlov gazed off toward the sea. “We can talk of that later when my supplies are safe ashore,” he replied.
The morning was fair with little wind, yet it was the season of the year when storms could be looked for, so I understood why the Russian wished to move onto our island.
“It is better to agree now,” said my father.
Captain Orlov took two long steps away from my father, then turned and faced him. “One part to you is fair since the work is ours and ours the risk.”
My father shook his head.
The Russian grasped his beard. “Since the sea is not yours, why do I have to give you any part?”
“The sea which surrounds the Island of the Blue Dolphins belongs to us,” answered my father.
He spoke softly as he did when he was angry.
“From here to the coast of Santa Barbara- twenty leagues away?”
“No, only that which touches the island and where the otter live.”
Captain Orlov made a sound in his throat. He looked at our men standing on the beach and toward those who had now come from behind the rocks. He looked at my father and shrugged his shoulders. Suddenly he smiled, showing his long teeth.
“The parts shall be equal,” he said.
He said more, but I did not hear it, for at that instant in my great excitement I moved a small rock, which clattered down the cliff and fell at his feet. Everyone on the beach looked up. Silently I left the toyon bushes and ran without stopping until I reached the mesa.
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| View all 5 comments |
Brandon Valsonis (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
As a college student and a budding teacher I find this book excellent for the use of students in exploring both independence and the Chumash culture. The book has been highly acclaimed for many reasons. I myself read this book when I was in elementary school and remember relating to Karana'a need to be independent. Reading about how a young girl became self sufficient by figuring out her environment intrigued me. Students like myself also get introduced to the idea of seeing the life of animals as beautiful and full of worth. As Karana identifies with the struggles of the animals on the island, the animals become highly relatable to her. The animals are shown to have lives and identities of their own that give children a look at how animals are affected by humans and the environment like us. |
Aron Parker (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
I've found that Newberys (the kind with one r-not two) often have a bittersweet flavor to them, and "Island of the Blue Dolphins" is no different. It's the kind of story that deliciously melts into the recesses of your imagination, but at the same time makes you squint your eyes to hold back the tears.
As I'm sure most people reading this review already know, the book, loosely based on true events, is about Won-a-pa-lei, a native girl who gets left alone on an island off of the California Coast for nearly two decades in the 1800s. Actually the young woman's name is Karana. But that's her "secret name," and it would be impolite of me to wear it out.
One might imagine that an entire book about a girl living by herself on an island would be a bit boring. However, I lied above when I said she's alone. In actuality, Kara . . . uh, I mean Won-a-pa-lei, is not alone. When deprived of human contact, she turns to the creatures of the island for companionship. Dogs, birds, sea otters, and, yes, even a few dolphins, all help Won-a-pa-lei to feel like part of a community in a world without people.
Although the story is written in a first-person perspective, our narrator rarely gets lost in her emotions. Instead, readers are left to discover the emotions for themselves as Won-a-pa-lei faces the joys and sorrows of existence. The passage of time is also artfully fluctuated, slowing down to show the perils of daily life, and then speeding up to show seasonal weather patterns, animal life cycles, and the never-ending tick-tocking of mother nature's clock.
In a fast-paced society where every man, woman, child, and newborn seems to have a cell phone, Island of the Blue Dolphins gives us a brief glimpse into life at its most elemental level-a human being living as one with her natural environment, and surviving not only physically in the face of adversity, but mentally as well. This story is mandatory reading for anyone planning to get stranded on a deserted island. And it's not too bad for the rest of us either.
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A Kid (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
Karana jumped off of a boat to save her brother, and then spent eighteen years alone on an island in the Pacific. Karana and her younger brother Ramo, were son and daughter for the Chief of Ghalas-at, on the Island of the Blue Dolphins in the Pacific. When the Aleuts, Russians who come to their island every spring to hunt otter, refuse to pay their share of otter pelts, a war breaks out between them. Being no match to the Aleuts' guns and knives, all of the warriors and the chief are killed in the battle. The people of Ghalas-at then appoint a new chief, an elderly man by the name of Kimki, who decides to go to an island in the East in search of land to move their tribe to. Kimki did not return for many seasons, and everyone assumed him dead. When spring arrived again, plans were made between the people to flee on canoes they had hidden in a cave as soon as Aleut ships were spotted. When a ship finally arrives, everyone gets prepared to flee in the prepared canoes, until they realize that unlike the Aleut ship, this ship has white sails and is relatively smaller. The people were on the ship to take them away from that island. Everyone boarded on the ship, including Karana and her older sister Ulape, with their most prized possessions. Just as their ship leaves the cove and a storm is coming, Karana sees Ramo on the beach waving frantically and tells the captain to go back and get them. The captain tells her that he can't, so she jumps off of the boat to save him, destroying her best skirt that she was wearing. Ramo, proclaiming himself chief, goes to spear some fish for their dinner and never came back. Later Karana found him lying dead about a league from the beach, half eaten by a pack of wild dogs that Karana promises to avenge. Karana moves to the other end of the island to keep away from the memories of her friends and builds herself a crude hut out of wood, using a rock as two walls of her house. Karana built a fence out of whale ribs and bull kelp, with the ribs curved outward so that they were impossible to climb. Karana found many pets on the island, including four cormorant birds and two wild dogs. While she was on the island, Karana survived through many storms and even a tsunami and earthquake. Whenever the Aleuts came, Karana would hide in one of the multiple caves that were used by her past ancestors, and no one found her except for an Aleut girl named Tutok. They became friends and taught each other things in their own language until Tutok left. After eighteen years had passed, a ship that was not Aleut came and brought Karana to a missionary in California, where she learned that the ship that her people had sunk, along with her language and traditions, and never reached to the harbor. This is a very good book that tells the story of a young woman who persevered enough to survive by herself for eighteen years on an island.
Karana was willing to do whatever she needed to survive. Karana was told that if a woman made weapons, the world would open up and "swallow" her. or the sky would strike her with lightning. She made weapons anyway, but nothing happened to her. Karana had multiple homes on the island so that if someone found her mainland home they would not find her. She also found multiple springs and different paths to each spring so she would not wear a path to her house.
Karana had a lot of perseverance. She failed multiple times when she was trying to make a spear and a bow and arrow, and it took many ties to make one that would fly straight. When Karana found a giant devilfish in the water, she made a weapon that the men in her tribe would use to spear them, and kept holding on to the string that the spear was connected to so that she could drag to shore. When she finally reached the shore, her dog had gotten caught in it's tentacles and she was bruised from all of the suction cups on it's arms.
Wherever Karana was on the island, she always found something to do. When she was on the beach, Karana would play with Rontu, her wild dog pet, or hunt for fish and play with the otters. In the caves, Karana would look and explore the inner chambers that her ancestors used. One time she found a chamber that had the skeletons of three of her ancestors in it! Sometimes Karana would go to the rocks on the edge of the island and watch the walruses fight.
This book is extremely good. It can be emotional and adventurous at the same time, and is a great survival story. I would recommend it to people of all age groups.
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A kid (MSL quote), IL USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
As a child, my grade school librarian wore out from me asking to borrow so often. Later, as a private tutor, my students chose this again and again. "Island of the Blue Dolphins" lives up to its reputation as one of the greatest children's book ever.
Libraries are good for borrowing books, but some books should be on the shelf of any young reader. Scott O'Dell's magnificent "Island of the Blue Dolphins" is just that. Save your librarian some grief and buy a copy.
"The Island of the Blue Dolphins" is not the story of a foolish young girl who missed the boat when the island was being evacuated. Far from it. Karana was on the boat. Her playful little brother, Ramo, wasn't. He was only 6 years old and could never survive alone. She jumped off and headed to shore to save him. The boat left.
Every little girl or boy has been alone, frightened without a clear way of finding his or her way home. Often, the problem is fixed by turning the next corner, finding out it is the same neighborhood it has always been. In the case of "The Island of the Blue Dolphins," Karana's home never changes. Everyone she knows and loves, however, leaves.
For 18 years Karana took care of herself, and she grows from a preteen child into a woman just entering her 30s. This is that story, filled with adventures similar to "Robinson Crusoe," another true story set to fiction. Fans of "Swiss Family Robinson," will likewise enjoy this.
Karana's ingenuity to survive is surpassed by her tenacity and hope. Weathering hard circumstances, such wild dogs, storms and the constant need to find fresh food and good water. She uses what she learned from her parents and other villagers before the left, and what she learns by trial an error.
As exciting as "Treasure Island," only with a female protagonist, the book is more than a tale of heroics. Scott O'Dell's keen sense of description separates this from the rest of the bookshelf. Although sensitive that his reader is younger, he still manages to place to reader in the story, imagining the smell of sea or hearing the not-so-far off bark of wild dogs.
Like other classics as "Old Yeller" and "My Brother Sam Is Dead," not everything comes easily to Karana. There are somber times when people leave, when her brother dies, or when things look bleak. O'Dell tells the story as realistically as he can, which makes the happy times happier.
I fully recommend "Island of the Blue Dolphins," by Scott O'Dell. It won "The Newberry Medal for Best Children's Book" for good reason.
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