Island of the Blue Dolphins in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Nov 12, 2011 jess rated it really liked it

Shelves: yaf, 2011, ladyish

This is the story of native girl who survives alone on an island off the coast of California for 18 years. All the people in her village left on the white man's boat with hopes for a better future, but Karana is left behind. She makes a home for herself, tools and weapons, maintaining a water supply, hunting for her food and gathering plants to use as medicine. She's a veritable badass survivor. For many years, she thinks someone will come back for her, and the book is filled with this aching, h This is the story of native girl who survives alone on an island off the coast of California for 18 years. All the people in her village left on the white man's boat with hopes for a better future, but Karana is left behind. She makes a home for herself, tools and weapons, maintaining a water supply, hunting for her food and gathering plants to use as medicine. She's a veritable badass survivor. For many years, she thinks someone will come back for her, and the book is filled with this aching, heart-wrenching longing for rescue. This is a gripping portrait of isolation and desolation, a marginal life hewn from the harsh world. Karana reflects at one point, ...the sound of a human voice. There is no sound like this in all the world. When I first learned this book was based on a true story, it changed the shape of my heart forever.

I read this book probably one hundred times when I was a kid. It's probably one of the most definitive texts of my childhood. It's a Newbury award winner. There's a movie, which I haven't seen, and a sequel, which I haven't read but probably will. Last night, I found myself in an all-too-familiar state of insomnia, in need of a familiar text. Goddess bless the Olympia Public Library's e-book lending service and their round-the-clock Overdrive service. I finished Island of the Blue Dolphins less than 12 hours later.

I greatly enjoyed revisiting the island, although my adult eyes noticed some holes in the story (the otter cape that wears out & reappears, for example) and shortcomings in the writing style that I missed in my previous readings. I must have cultivated some intense survivalist fantasies as a child to appreciate Karana's hardships and experiences so deeply. I will forever carry the memory of Karana sleeping atop a giant flat rock with the wild dogs circling all night, howling, while the wind whips over her in a dried seaweed bed. Her little house -- which she built herself, of course, from whale bones, kelp, driftwood and seal sinew, like any teenaged girl would do -- with its impermeable bone fence and the little yard full of tamed wild birds and creatures. She befriended a fox, for goodness sake, found him too needy, and set him free.

This book is strange and special and sticks in my mind. ...more

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Jan 29, 2015 Piepie | The Napping Bibliophile rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: childrens, read-in-2015, ebooks, read-in-2019, favorites

When I was younger, I had a beautiful blue hardback of this book, with gorgeous illustrations. This survival story still thrills me. Now that I'm older, I can read this story in less than a day. ...more

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Oct 26, 2018 Joanna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: passport, 2018-read, rws-2018-fall, coming-of-age

I saw this book mentioned in my GR group and remembered it as one of my favorite books as a kid. Knowing I had a long drive, I downloaded the audiobook from the library and was transported back to this story for the three or four hours that the audio lasted. I will recommend this book to my nine-year-old, who has just had a class unit on survivors where they did exercises like picking which items they'd most want to have if they were marooned on an island.

Here, the heroine finds herself left beh ...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Beth Given rated it really liked it

Shelves: newbery

This was a story of adventure and survival and, I'd argue, a "coming of age" story, too -- but not one like I'd ever read before. I enjoyed Karana's journey from a child, dependent on the traditions of her tribe, to an incredibly strong, self-reliant, and kind young woman.

What bumped this up to a four-star book for me was the author's note at the end -- I hadn't realized until the novel was over that the Island of the Blue Dolphins is a real place, and Karana (or whatever her true name is) was a ...more

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