friend #6: Island of the Blue Dolphins

            Wilderness survival is a great topic for literature. It allows the reader to ask, “What would I do if I were stranded in the wild?” without leaving the comfort of his or her own home. The genre’s popularity spans the centuries, from Robinson Crusoe (1719) to Swiss Family Robinson (1812) to Lord of the Flies (1954) to the film Cast Away (2000). It only follows that a children’s novel of the same genre would be clamored for, and to fit in that niche I submit Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O’Dell and…wait for it…another Newberry Award winner. (There’s also My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, but I wasn’t introduced to that book until after my childhood). As the genre demands, O’Dell skillfully takes the story of a young girl alone on an island and makes it fascinating for all 29 chapters.

Scott O’Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Houghton Mifflin, 1960.

            Karana is a young girl belonging to a tribe of Native Americans who live on a small island off the coast of California. Her island is visited by a group of Russian trappers, who ask her father’s permission to hunt the otter that live just off the coast. The two groups strike a trade bargain, but when the Russians prepare to leave, they pay a fraction of the agreed-upon price. This sparks a battle between the natives and the Russians, leaving most of the tribe’s men (including Karana’s father) dead. The new leader of the tribe takes a canoe and sails off in search of new land to support the group, and some time later sends a ship back for the rest of the tribe. On the morning of the ship’s departure, as it pulls away from land, Karana realizes that her little brother, Ramo, is not on board. In desperation she jumps off the ship and swims back to shore, finding Ramo on the beach. By that time, however the ship is too far gone for the siblings to join it.

            They reason that another ship will come for them in time, and set out to make the best of their situation. They find their empty village stripped of any leftover food by the pack of wild dogs that roams the island, and must forage for their meals. The next day Ramo decides to fetch a canoe and paddle it around to the village side of the island. Karana laughs at him, telling him he is too small, but letting him go nonetheless. She waits near the village for him to come around in the canoe, and as more time passes, she grows uneasy. Finally she goes in search of him, and finds him dead, killed by the wild dogs. Grief-stricken, she carries him back to the village and vows to somehow kill the dogs.

            She decides not to live in the village, now haunted by memories of so many people now gone. After a while she decides to try and strike out for the land to the west in one of the canoes the tribe left behind. After making careful preparations, she sets off, only to get lost at sea after a few days. Eventually she finds her way back to the island, and decides that she must stay there until outside help comes. She makes a new home for herself, adding to it over time. At one point she finds the remains of a whale carcass, and uses its ribs to fashion a fence around her house.

            She does succeed in killing some of the wild dogs, but forms an unlikely friendship with the pack’s leader, whom she names Rontu. Rontu leaves the pack for Karana and becomes her constant companion. She does see the Russians again, perhaps a couple years into her isolation. She doesn’t dare reveal herself to them, and instead hides during their stay. However, she does reveal herself to the woman accompanying the hunters, and although the two women do not share a language, they are able to communicate by hand signals. The hunting party leaves soon afterward, and Karana is left alone again. By this time she has made friends with a variety of animals on the island, including a pair of birds and a couple of otters. She has made weapons and can hunt as well as any man, and has a decent life for herself. Finally, many years after she was abandoned as a child, a ship comes bearing men from a mission in Southern California, near where her people landed. She packs up her things, including her dog and two birds, and sets sail for the mainland, watching her island as it fades into the distance.

            This narrative is actually based on a true story. Known as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, this member of the Nicoleño tribe lived by herself on the island from 1835–1853. Upon her rescue she was brought to the Santa Barbara mission and taken under the care of Father Gonzales. Her language could not be understood, but she and the Californians were able to communicate to some extent. O’Dell turns this story into a piece of children’s historical fiction, and it works extremely well. Obviously this novel is not meant to be taken as a literal interpretation of the Lone Woman’s time spent on San Nicolas, but the fact that it is tied to actual events serve to make the reader care about Karana that much more. Her survival skills and sharp thinking are engaging to read about, and whenever I read her story, a (very) small part of me wants to be stranded right along with her on that island. It’s a scenario that will obviously never happen to any of O’Dell’s readers, but reading about it gives you the fun without the inconvenience. Look for this one on the award-winner shelf of the kid’s section in any bookstore or library. Happy reading!