Island of the Blue Dolphins
by Scott O'Dell

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Book Reviews of Island of the Blue Dolphins

Book Review: Required Summer Reading for My Daughter
Summary: 5 Stars

Our daughter loved the book, espcially the parts about Karana making friends with the animals and surviving on her own. The book offers tantalizing possibilities for a 9-year old. My husband thought it was a great adventure book, and he liked the idea that the protagonist was a girl this time. I, too, thought it was inspiring that the main character was a brave young female who was able to wrestle with the natural environment and yet be respectful of its wonders.

I do, however, have two concerns, perhaps petty and irrelevant given the larger vision of the story. (1) Nowhere in the book was there a mention how how Karan made her many fires. She used fire to rid the houses at her abandoned village; she made fires for cooking and keeping warm. I remember only one description that hinted at the difficulty of making fire -- when Karana sprinkled ashes over her night fire and blew the embers in the morning to keep it alive.(I hope I got the description right.) Fire is very basic to sustaining long-term survival for humans. I think a young reader would have appreciated a brief description. (2) Given that the book was first published around 1960 or so and written by a man, I can understand why there was no suggestion whatsoever of Karana's first period and how she dealt with it. Karana starts out as a 12-year old and becomes a 30-year old at the end of the story (at least according to the author's afterword). Yet much of the book's description could have been attributed to a boy, except perhaps for Karana's interest in making the cormorant skirt. Her sexuality is, however, acknowledged at the end of the book when Karana realizes she can finally leave the island and she drawas the blue line on her face (as her sister did many years before) to indicate she is an unmarried female.

My concerns do not diminish the power of the book and I only wish the book had not eluded me when I was my daughter's age. Many of the great books about girls have the protagonist as orphaned in order to allow her to make defining decisions unfettered by parental, especially, maternal, constraints. While this books falls in that vein, Island is based on a true story and the real Karana did have to rely on her wits to survive and make sense of the world. If only I had read the book as a young girl!

Summary of Island of the Blue Dolphins

O'Dell tells the miraculous story of how Karana forages on land and in the ocean, clothes herself (in a green-cormorant skirt and an otter cape on special occasions), and secures shelter. Perhaps even more startlingly, she finds strength and serenity living alone on the island. This beautiful edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins is enriched with 12 full-page watercolor paintings by Ted Lewin, illustrator of more than 100 children's books, including Ali, Child of the Desert. A gripping story of battling wild dogs and sea elephants, this simply told, suspenseful tale of survival is also an uplifting adventure of the spirit. (Ages 9 to 12)

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