Island of the Blue Dolphins: Our Latest Great Read

Ariel and I both love to read separately too, but there is something special about us curling up in bed under some thick covers and reading aloud to each other.  Usually I’m the one reading, but sometimes she is, and we enjoy this time together tremendously.  I know that we won’t always have this time, so I treasure it immensely.  I think she does too.

We just finished one of my childhood favorites, Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell.  I have fond memories of reading this over and over again as a young teenager and wanted to share the magic with Ariel.

I think she only started out listening to humor me.  Probably only stuck through the first half of the book to indulge me.  But by the end, she was begging me to “read just one more chapter” and even insisted on reading the last few pages first thing Sunday morning, before we got our day kick-started.  I think she enjoyed it. 

If you’ve never read the book, you’re in for a treat.  Based roughly on the life of a Native American woman literally abandoned on a stark remote Pacific island, Island of the Blue Dolphins reads like an autobiography.  Author Scott O’Dell creates in Karana a strong protagonist and I found myself exclaiming throughout, “Wow!  Who would have ever thought of that!”  Her ingenuity and determined spirit make her a great role model for today’s readers and I hope that Ariel will find herself thumbing through her version for years to come.

In my own adult, researching way, I found a few sites that added (for me) some great details about Karana’s real life and some of the backstory of the novel.  However, Ariel was having none-of-that, thankyouverymuch, and was quite happy to enjoy the fictional account of the novel as truth; although she *knows* the Island of the Blue Dolphins is only a romanticized version of a true story(based on very few real facts), she’s quite happy to leave it at that.

So, if you’re interested, check out Scholastic’s A Reading Guide to Island of the Blue Dolphins and also the Wikipedia entry on Island of the Blue Dolphins.  Just don’t try to get Ariel to read them!

Next on our to-read list is The Borrowers because we are dying to see the new Disney flick, The Secret World of Arrietty!

What great books are you and your tweens reading these days?

Tweet