Not the best book I have read in my life but it was a pretty good book under my reviews. ( )

“Island of the Blue Dolphins” is a multicultural, historical fiction about a young Indian girl who lives on a small island. The story beings when the young girl, Karana, is 12 years old. She and her 6 year old brother are searching for roots when the Aleut ship arrives at their island. The Aleuts are there to hunt otters. Karana’s father, chief of the village, agrees to allow the Aleuts to hunt for payment. When it is time for the Aleuts to leave the island they do not keep their bargain and kill many of Karana’s people including her father. Her people grieve the loss of so many men and are fearful that the Aleuts will return. Eventually another ship arrives. This ship is brought to the island by white men who are there to take the rest of the people off the island to a new land. Once on the ship, Karana discovers her brother is left behind and she dives off the ship to return for her brother. They are left behind to live on the island alone. After a terrible accident, Karana’s brother is killed leaving her totally alone. Many seasons pass before Karana sees another ship. Most of her life is spent gathering food, building shelter, making weapons, and avoiding attacks from the wild dogs. Karana is no longer a girl when she is finally rescued from the island.

The book is a survival story where a girl conquers her fears and survives not only nature but loneliness. She must remember what she saw when watching the men make weapons and build the canoes, overcoming the fear of punishment from the gods for doing a man’s work. The descriptions of the gathering and naturally preserving the food, the building of her shelters, making her clothing and weapons, and surviving the elements of nature are very detailed. The beliefs and the customs of the Indians are woven into the story to help the reader better understand how Karana thinks. Their spiritual beliefs are described in the use of their real names and the skeletons she discovers in the caves. The story is based on a true story about a girl, known as The Lost Woman of San Nicolas, who actually lived alone on an island near California from 1835 to 1853. The information on the woman that inspired the story is included in the “Author’s Note” at the end of the book.

In the classroom a teacher could use the book to discuss the cultures, and ways of surviving, in the primitive styles of life of the early Indians. Different types of plants and plant seeds, herbs, and dried fish could be shown to the students as items that were possibly harvested for food. The students could be given small leather craft kits to demonstrate the types of materials used for clothing and shoes and how it is sewn together to make an item. The book could be used by a teacher to support a discussion on how women have been stereotyped into certain roles even by early cultures. The discussion could continue with the students giving examples of famous women they have heard about and why they are famous. These women could be compared with women the students personally know such as their mothers and grandmothers and their roles in the home and work place. ( )

A story of a selfless girl, Karana, who left her tribe on a boat to go back and save her younger brother. Karana's brother dies soon after their tribe leaves, and Karana is left alone on the island. Karana finds it hard to survive for the first while because of the restrictions and cultural beliefs of her tribe. Karana survives for 18 years alone on the island before a ship returns.

When her tribe leaves the Island of the Blue Dolphins, Karana is left behind and must survive on her own. O'Dell's writing conveys the isolation felt and struggles undertaken, as well as the animal friends Karana makes as the years go by. Told from a first-person perspective, sometimes stated emotions seem rather shallow (“I was happy”, “I felt sad”) when stated after an event that stirs much richer emotions in the reader. The situations immediately after she is left behind is particularly heart-breaking. Not only does Karana have to deal with the wind-swept environment; packs of wild dogs and her own cultural upbringing (women shall not make weapons) make life difficult. The author's note at the end informs the reader that this is his recreation of what might actually have happened to a girl marooned for 18 years on an island in the Pacific. Only the most callus of readers will be able to avoid being pulled into the loneliness of this story. ( )

This is a book about a girl Karana who got stranded on an island by herself when she went back to get her brother as their tribe was leaving. Her brother dies soon after and she is isolated on this island where her tribe once thrived and her father once led. She waited and waited for a ship to come back for her, but as years passed one had yet to come. She kept herself alive for eighteen years before a ship arrived by providing shelter, food, clothes, and protection for herself.