Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (1960)

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell (1960) – Winner of the 1961 Newberry Award

It’s a great thing for me to be part of the Cousins’ Book Club this year (well, running it actually!), because I’d otherwise not be taking time to read such fantastic youth fiction as this—another Newberry winner.

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Brief Summary of Island of the Blue Dolphins

I must admit early that Scott O’Dell filled in all the holes of time-and-place for me in his Afterword, which is exactly how I like it! I’m glad I didn’t read these tidbits beforehand—so if you’re not wanting spoilers (something I rarely share), you can skip this summary.

Karana is a young native girl lives on a sparsely-populated island 75 miles off the coast of California in what I thought was Colonial times but was actually the early 19th century. When her tribe of 42 people is massacred by some visiting Aleuts over the price of sea otters, the few survivors are eventually forced to run away with some white men to the mainland.

Karana joins them, but when she realizes her brother has been left behind, she returns to the island with hopes that the ship will eventually return to reclaim them. Unbeknownst to her, the ship is lost in a storm, and she and her brother are forgotten. After her brother is killed by a pack of wild dogs, Karana remains alone on the island for the next 18 years!

What unfolds is a strong retelling of a tale that is shockingly true. This “Lost Woman of San Nicolas” really survived alone of this island eating roots and shellfish, surviving squid and wild dogs, hunting cormorants and foxes, and taming birds and otters.

**Survival—Starring a Girl!**

My kids and I have enjoyed reading Gary Paulsen‘s survival books (particularly The Brian Saga) together, and this book is precisely that—except starring a girl. O’Dell includes the same amount of death and danger as Paulsen, as well as youthful ingenuity and harmony with nature, yet he puts the power of survival in the hands of a young woman, which I haven’t much seen in my reading.

Survival tales often star (and are often reserved for) boys. I’m no feminist and nothing close to a gender ideologist, but I do know my kids—that my daughter (13) is way more into the wilderness and survival stories than my son (15). It’s personality differences—she takes after her dad!—nothing more, so I’m glad to have come across this book. From memory, I recall only a few other instances of young ladies in survival situations:

A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla (1981)
Abandoned by Jeri Massi (1989)
Real Kids, Real Adventures by Deborah Morris (1994)

If you’ve got a stronger list than this, please let me know!

A Few Other Notes

The only bits of outside information I wish I had before starting this book are these (hopefully not spoilers): that this story is fictionalize truth, and that it’s supposed to cover that span of 18 years. While I now appreciate the task O’Dell had before him—to fill the details of this quiet woman’s 18-years alone on an island—I was a bit annoyed as I read the book by how quickly seasons and years passed. As fiction, this would have been lazy. As historical fiction, however, it’s essential.

Although this woman spoke a dead language and couldn’t communicate with the Catholics who rescued her, O’Dell picks up on a few cultural cues that likely stem from research into native communities of the era. For example, he leans heavily into the idea that women weren’t allowed to craft weapons, under the threat of supernatural death. He also briefly references the lost religious beliefs of Karana’s people (talking to the dead) and their relationship with other tribes.

As for survival abilities, I enjoyed Karana’s creativity in using bones for fence-making and weapon crafting. Perhaps my favorite tidbit of the entire book, though, was how she used dried minnows as candles! We can get those by the bag-full as snacks here on the island (not The Island of Blue Dolphins), so it gives me an idea to keep some on hand for our next typhoon!

Finally, I liked O’Dell’s inclusion of both an earthquake and a tsunami in this tale, though according to tsunami trackers, none actually occurred along the California coast between 1835-1853. Still, it was an interesting portion of the book, and one Karana was safe to survive.

Conclusion

I’m still moving very slowly through my (unstated) goal of reading all the Newberry Winners. It’s nice to knock them out every once in a while, and it’s even nicer to find a book that I know my daughter will love.

If you’ve got more female-survival stories like this to recommend, let me know!

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