Newbery Medal Winner 40 - Island of the Blue Dolphins

I'm sort of backing back into this potential series of blog posts. You might recall that I thought I'd start reading my way through the Newbery Medal winners (outstanding children's book). But the first one was so horrible, I quickly got stalled. Now, I'm jumping ahead to the 40th winner because I was asked about it.



This weekend, someone asked me if I'd read The Island of the Blue Dolphins because her pre-teen son loved it and read it over and over. She thought this was fantastic, since the protagonist is a girl, but that did not bother him. No, I hadn't read it. Well, at least I'd heard of it, but that was all. A writer of good (hopefully) children's books needs to be a reader of good children's books.

In my defense, I'll mention that the book was written in 1961. I was in 8th grade. And I'm sure my school library didn't get it until a few years after that. By then, I was not reading children's books.

I found it free online at Internet Archive., then search for Island of the Blue Dolphins. You will need a free account.

This book has been listed by some sources as one of the most popular novels of the 20th Century. (Seriously? How did I completely miss this?). Anyway, it's a great story.

Current criticisms include that it's a Caucasian writer attempting to tell the story of a Native American and that many parts of the cultural narrative are not accurate. Well, OK. But it's a fictional story, based on the merest kernal of truth. Perhaps the author, Scott O'Dell, could have done more research. But millions of people must be glad he wrote it. It's a classic coming-of-age tale. There is also apparently a genre called Robinsonade, after the Robinson Crusoe story (people suddenly separated from civilization), into which this book fits.

The kernal of truth is that there was a real woman who was rescued from the island of San Nicolas (off the California coast) in 1853. She had lived there alone for 18 years and had tamed a wild dog to be her companion. She had been left behind when the remnant of her people were taken to California in 1835 by ship. Variations on the story have it that she jumped overboard and swam back to the island when she learned that her child/younger brother was not on the ship. After she was rescued, there was no one left who understood her language, and she died just 7 weeks later of dysentery. The real woman was probably in her 20s when she was stranded.

O'Dell takes this skeleton and gives us Karana, a girl of 12, who jumps overboard and swims back to the island because her younger brother is not on the ship. The brother is soon killed by the wild dogs and Karana is left alone to survive.

Supposedly, some of the native skills and customs are totally imagined by O'Dell, but the struggle to come to terms with her plight and to find enough self-reliance to survive is a theme that resonates with young people of any culture. The book is told from Karana's point of view, and does not attempt to explore the depths of emotions she must have felt. Karana mostly sticks to the "facts." and lets the reader add the details. She does occasionally mention being lonesome, or says how much joy she found in the company of the dog she manages to tame.

Personally, I liked this straightforward narrative. It rang true to me that a person who has been raised where every meal, tool, item of clothing, etc is only to be had by finding or making it yourself would have a matter-of-fact attitude toward dealing with the world. The greatest struggle Karana mentions is to overcome the tribal tabu against females making weapons, yet she had to defend herself from the dogs, and she needed to catch food beyond the abalones she could collect from the rocks. I don't know if this cultural norm was real or made-up, but I can believe that would have been an extremely difficult psychological situation.

The story was made into a movie in 1964. I watched the trailer on YouTube, but it was awful. Maybe it wasn't awful in 1964, but compared with the book, it was jarringly fake. Some movies age well. This one does not.

In other news: The vendor event wrapped up. I haven't done the final paperwork, but I did well. That is good.

See Newbery 1 - The Story of Mankind See Newbery Medal Through the Years

Newbery Medal Winner 1- The Story of Mankind

 
You may recall that almost exactly two years ago I contemplated trying to read all the Newbery Medal books. The Newbery Medal annually honors the author of "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award was begun in 1922.



Well, I did not put this idea off to some future date. However, it did get stalled. Here's why. The very first winner was a book named The Story of Mankind by Hendrik van Loon. I easily found the text for free at a number of sites.


Here is one of the illustrations. The text version I was reading did not include these.



This book is a complete snoozer, and on top of that, it's long. And...it's incredibly one-sided in its worldview. I just kept getting really angry with how it assumes that everyone has now agreed on one thread of growth for western civilization, and one standard social norm, and one set of values that is OBVIOUSLY the correct one.

I'll be honest with you. I haven't been able to finish the book. I've gotten to chapter 35 out of 66. And, of course, it has nothing after 1921. (1922 awards were for books written in 1921.) I'm quoting the final paragraphs to give you a flavor for the book.

Then came the new age of iron and steel and machinery. First one part, then another of the old ship of state was changed. Her dimensions were increased. The sails were discarded for steam. Better living quarters were established, but more people were forced to go down into the stoke-hole, and while the work was safe and fairly remunerative, they did not like it as well as their old and more dangerous job in the rigging. Finally, and almost imperceptibly, the old wooden square-rigger had been transformed into a modern ocean liner. But the captain and the mates remained the same. They were appointed or elected in the same way as a hundred years before. They were taught the same system of navigation which had served the mariners of the fifteenth century. In their cabins hung the same charts and signal flags which had done service in the days of Louis XIV and Frederick the Great. In short, they were (through no fault of their own) completely incompetent.

The sea of international politics is not very broad. When those Imperial and Colonial liners began to try and outrun each other, accidents were bound to happen. They did happen. You can still see the wreckage if you venture to pass through that part of the ocean.

And the moral of the story is a simple one. The world is in dreadful need of men who will assume the new leadership—who will have the courage of their own visions and who will recognise clearly that we are only at the beginning of the voyage, and have to learn an entirely new system of seamanship.

They will have to serve for years as mere apprentices. They will have to fight their way to the top against every possible form of opposition. When they reach the bridge, mutiny of an envious crew may cause their death. But some day, a man will arise who will bring the vessel safely to port, and he shall be the hero of the ages.

After this initial winner, I can't imagine than any other winner could be worse. Or as long. I'll continue my quest, and share.

If you want to take on The Story of Mankind, you can find it at Project Gutenberg. The Story of Mankind

You may recall, I'd only ever read 16 of these books, both winners and runners-up. Now I'm up to 16 1/2. Whoopie.

It's all other news: I mailed all the preordered books, and submitted my entries for this year's Michigan Outdoor Writers Association. That basically took all day. Tomorrow I have a few more things to do and then pack. Stay tuned.

See Newbery Medal Through the Years

Newbery Medal through the Years

 
You've probably heard of the Newbery Medal. I've realized since I was a kid that it was a prestigious award for children's books. Today, on World Book Day, I went hunting for a list of winners.


"The most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" United States, Presented by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association

Now I'm feeling quite sheepish. It has been awarded since 1922, with one winner per year, and several honored books- like runners-up.

How many total books? I quit counting at 300, and I was only up to 1991. But here's the deal. The number of these books I've heard of is ridiculously small. The list of those I've read is even shorter. Here it is:

On the Banks of Plum Creek, 1938, Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Long Winter, 1941, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little Town on the Prairie, 1942, Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Story of Mary Jemison, 1942, Lois Lenski
Johnny Tremain, 1944, Esther Forbes
Those Happy Golden Years, 1944, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Misty of Chincoteague, 1948, Marguerite Henry
King of the Wind, 1949, Marguerite Henry
Charlotte's Web, 1953, E.B. White
Men, Microscopes and Living Things, 1956, Katherine Shippen
Old Yeller, 1957, Fred Gipson
My Side of the Mountain, 1960, Jean Craighead George
A Wrinkle in Time, 1963, Madeline L'Engle
Sounder, 1970, William H. Armstrong
Frog and Toad Together, 1973, Arnold Lobel
A Ring of Endless Light, 1981, Madeline L'Engle
Because of Winn-Dixie, 2001, Kate DiCamillo

Reading through a list of adult literary classics can be really daunting. But how hard could it be to read a pile of great children's books? My guess is the hardest part might be to find some of them.

I may have a new personal library goal. Uh oh.

In other news: I worked, came home with a good energy level (couldn't stay awake yesterday) and have written chapters 18 and 19 in The ABZ Affair. May actually finish that book tonight. Then it will be on to editing, formatting, illustrations, etc.

	See Wikipedia list of Newbery Medal winners and honorees
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