Island of the Blue Dolphins is about a girl named Karana. A group of people come to the Island of the Blue Dolphins to tell them they can live with them in Saint Barbra, California. Their ship comes to pick them up, but Karana's brother gets left behind. Karana jumps of the boat and goes to her brother. Later on the island wild dogs kill her brother. Now she has to learn to survive on her own with those wild dogs. on the way she does meet some friends.
Island of the Blue Dolphins
By Scott O'Dell
Interest Level | Reading Level | Reading A-Z | ATOS | Word Count |
---|---|---|---|---|
Grades 4 - 8 | Grades 10 - 9 | V | 5.4 | 40531 |
Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as the island of San Nicholas. Dolphins flash in the blue waters around it, sea otter play in the vast kep beds, and sea elephants loll on the stony beaches.
Here, in the early 1800s, according to history, an Indian girl spent eighteen years alone, and this beautifully written novel is her story. It is a romantic adventure filled with drama and heartache, for not only was mere subsistence on so desolate a spot a near miracle, but Karana had to contend with the ferocious pack of wild dogs that had killed her younger brother, constantly guard against the Aleutian sea otter hunters, and maintain a precarious food supply.
More than this, it is an adventure of the spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put down. Karana's quiet courage, her Indian self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience. From loneliness and terror come strength and serenity in this Newbery Medal-winning classic.