Island of the Blue Dolphins

I remember when my children read Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. It was many years ago but I still remember that my daughter cried while my oldest son tried not to cry. So I remember it as a sad book because a dog dies.

It is much more than that. This book was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1961. I was only eight years old and I wonder why (or if) I did not read the book. This was published in a time of women's liberation in the United States. I don't know that I would say that liberation is what this book is about, but certainly Karana moved outside female cultural roles as she survived alone on an island off the coast of California.

The book is based on the life of a real woman who lived alone on the island of San Nicolas from 1835 to 1853. She was named Juana Maria by a priest who was with her when she died only seven weeks after she was rescued by George Nidever. She is buried at the Santa Barbara Mission in California. To learn more, click HERE.


In Island of the Blue Dolphins, our heroine Karana stays behind on her island after the Aleuts killed many of the men of her tribe and the others had left on a large ship. She stayed because she could not find her brother on the ship. After her brother's traumatic death, Karana lives alone on the island. O'Dell uses imagery to help the reader visualize how Karana takes care of herself and the island. A strong girl, Karana does what she must do to survive. In the end, she has experienced joy and sorrow on the island. I liked the story and feel the students would as well.

TITLE: Island of the Blue Dolphins
AUTHOR: Scott O'Dell
COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 184
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I would recommend this to Middle School children who are naturalists (no matter what your definition) or for girls who need to learn that they can do anything they wish to do.

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Author: Scott O'Dell

Originally published by: Houghton-Mifflin (1960)
Length: 184 pages
My rating: 4.5/5
Awards: Newbery Medal

This simple, lyrical account of a young woman left behind on an island in the Pacific for many years was a surprising page-turner for me. The action begins right away when the Aleuts from the north come to hunt otters on Karana's island, culminating in a battle that leaves her father and many of the other men dead. A year later, the inhabitants of the island leave on a "white-man's ship" to relocate. When Karana's brother is left behind and the chief will not go back to get him, she jumps out of the ship so he will not be abandoned. What follows is her story of her industrious survival on the island year after year. Although told in a very matter-of-fact style, it is heartbreaking at times, but she also manages to find beauty and fulfillment in her solitary life as she waits for the ship to return for her. Amazingly to me, she's never angry with the people who left her behind, or resentful that no one has returned for her. Her anger is focused on the pack of dogs who kill her brother. She makes it her mission to conquer them, but ends up finding her closest companion among them. She is there for so long that the thought of the ship returning for her was bittersweet, and I wondered if in fact it would ever come.
I did not realize until the afterword that this is based on the true story of the "Lone Woman of San Nicolas" who lived on one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara from 1835 to 1853. I would definitely recommend this book to young readers as well as "less-young" readers (that's what I call myself these days--I will never be "old". Thank goodness for hair color!)

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Karana lives alone on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. The rest of her tribe escaped on a ship, but Karana had to stay behind to care for her little brother. This is short-lived, however; it is not long before the little brother wanders into trouble yet again and this time he is devoured by wild dogs.

Karana is now truly alone. Quite unexpectedly, she captures and befriends the leader of the wild dogs. The rest of the book tells the story of her struggles with dangers on the island, including the elements and the arrival of foreigners, and her struggles with loneliness during her many years on the island.

For me, it was the moment in the book where Karana befriends her brother’s killer that makes the book leap into excellence, into becoming Newbery-worthy.

Four Newbery Winners Out of Print and a Gold Star for Tedium

I thought you all might be interested in knowing that only four Newbery winners are out of print:

1925 -- Tales from Silver Lands by Charles Finger
1932 -- Waterless Mountain by Laura Adams Armer
1935 -- Dobry by Monica Shannon
1940 -- Daniel Boone by James Daugherty

No one here's read Waterless Mountain yet. I'm actually glad Daniel Boone isn't easily available anymore, and I'm not all that surprised that the surreal Tales from Silver Lands isn't still being sold. It fits the stereotype of the Newbery award in this funny Salon.com article: A Gold Star for Tedium: Do the Newbery Medal-Winning Children's Books Really Have to Be So Dreary?

The author, E.J. Graff, had exactly my take on Island of the Blue Dolphins, but she (or he?) was sooooo wrong about A Year Down Yonder and Out of the Dust.

So why, instead of delightful and powerful fictions, give children these other insomnia-curing books written in terrifyingly earnest and plodding prose, full of stick figures -- books as free of passion as a bad educational documentary, books that could turn an imaginative child into a dedicated television fan?

Graff goes to highlight some books that didn't win the Newbery, to compliment a few recent winners (like Holes), and to suggest that parents read the books before they give them to their kids (which I have to agree with):

It's time we adults grew up -- and start thinking of the Newbery medalists as suggestions, not final judgments. It's time to stop treating children -- the children we were, the children we know now -- as less perceptive and emotionally sophisticated than they are. It's time to chase away that lurking childhood belief that the ALA's committee of librarians -- the experts -- has some special insight into what children want to and should read. Before you buy a Newbery book for your daughter, your nephew, your young friend -- or yourself -- start reading. See how long it keeps you riveted. Ask yourself whether you'd rather read that or "Anne of Green Gables," "Tom Sawyer," Edith Hamilton's Greek myths, "My Antonia," "Annie John," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "War and Peace" or any other truly memorable book. Your guess may well be as good as the ALA's.

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Stars: *****

I first read this in grade school and loved it. When I saw I needed to read it for the Newbery Project I decided to reread it and I'm glad I did. I remembered it almost exactly and I enjoyed it very much again. I love his writing and would like to try some more of his books to see if they are as well written.

This is a great book for girls to increase girl power as the girl is alone on the island for a few years and survives all on her own. A few times I got so into the words I felt like I was there. To my knowledge this hasn't been made into a movie but I think it should, although it still wouldn't be anywhere as good as the book. Definitely deserves it's Newbery award.

Recommended for kids (especially girls) ages 10 and up

Island of the Blue Dolphins

I know that I read Island of the Blue Dolphins (the 1961 Newbery winner) by Scott O'Dell as a child, but before re-reading it this week I remembered little about it except that I didn't like the story. Back then I thought it was disturbing and depressing, and my Scholastic Books paperback with the beautiful cover (I think it was this one, and I do remember loving the cover) sat undisturbed on the dusty end of the shelf with the other books that I didn't really like.

It's still not my favorite Newbery winner, but as an adult I was able to appreciate the beauty of O'Dell's descriptions of the landscape and the plants and animals living on and around a small Channel Island off the coast of California. I also appreciated the quiet strength and resilience that Karana shows, and her happiness in her surroundings:

"I felt as if I had been gone a long time as I stood there looking down from the high rock. I was happy to be home. Everything I saw - the otter playing in the kelp, the rings of foam around the rocks guarding the harbor, the gulls flying, the tides moving past the sandspit - filled me with happiness." (p. 69).

"With the young birds and the old ones, the white gull and Rontu, who was always trotting at my heels, the yard seemed a happy place. If only I had not remembered Tutok. If only I had not wondered about my sister Ulape, where she was, and if the marks she had drawn upon her cheeks had proved magical. If they had, she was now married to Kimko and was the mother of many children. She would have smiled to see all of mine, which were so different from the ones I always wished to have." (p. 153).

The second quote also highlights some of the things that disturbed me about this book as a child - stop reading right here if you don't want to hear spoilers!





This girl loses her entire family, including the little brother she stayed to save, and then spends most of the rest of her life alone on an island. The very matter-of-factness of the narrative bothered me. It was one thing to voluntarily spend a year away from your family, like Sam Gribley in My Side of the Mountain (a childhood favorite of mine which I did re-read several times), but to lose everyone? With no idea what happened to them, or if anyone would ever come back for you? I didn't like that at all.

As an adult, a little Googling didn't make this aspect of the book any less sad for me: The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island describes the true story that O'Dell's book is based upon. A woman stayed on the island when her child couldn't be found when the Native community was being relocated to a mainland mission. Can you imagine anything more horrifying? Well, yes, to then have your child killed by wild dogs. To spend eighteen years alone except for dogs and birds, and then when you are finally rescued, to not find your people again. And then to die from a disease from which your people had no natural immunity, only seven weeks after finally re-joining humanity.

I hate to end on a such downer, especially concerning a book that is so loved by many people, but I'm afraid I that that I just couldn't find that "sense of hope" that I've been reading about on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. My childhood 'rating' still stands, but I will be interested to see how other readers feel about it.