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    Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Reader's Edition
    Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Reader's Edition
    Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Reader's Edition
    Ebook397 pages6 hours

    Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Reader's Edition

    By Scott O'Dell

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    This is the first authoritative edition of one of the most significant children’s books of the twentieth century. Winner of the 1961 Newbery Medal, Island of the Blue Dolphins tells the story of a girl left alone for eighteen years in the aftermath of violent encounters with Europeans on her home island off the coast of Southern California. This special edition includes two excised chapters, published here for the first time, as well as a critical introduction and essays that offer new background on the archaeological, legal, and colonial histories of Native peoples in California. Sara L. Schwebel explores the composition history and editorial decisions made by author Scott O’Dell that ensured the success of Island of the Blue Dolphins at a time when second-wave feminism, the civil rights movement, and multicultural education increasingly influenced which books were taught. This edition also considers how readers might approach the book today, when new archaeological evidence is emerging about the “Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island,” on whom O’Dell’s story is based, and Native peoples are engaged in the reclamation of indigenous histories and ongoing struggles for political sovereignty.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of California Press
    Release dateOct 4, 2016
    ISBN9780520964068
    Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Reader's Edition
    Author

    Scott O'Dell

    Scott O’Dell (1898–1989), one of the most respected authors of historical fiction, received the Newbery Medal, three Newbery Honor Medals, and the Hans Christian Andersen Author Medal, the highest international recognition for a body of work by an author of books for young readers. Some of his many books include The Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Road to Damietta, Sing Down the Moon, and The Black Pearl.

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    Reviews for Island of the Blue Dolphins

    4/5

    3,031 ratings129 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Island of the Blue Dolphins is about a young girl who is faced with the challenge of surviving on an island after the Aleut hunters killed many men in their tribe. This causes the other people on her island to leave in search of a new beginning. Karana finds herself to be strong and capable of surviving many situations. As time passes she becomes the caretaker of many animals on the island. This companionship makes being alone somewhat more bareable.
    • 5/5
      This was the first book that I ever really loved. I first read it when I was about 10 or 11, and I fell in love with Scott O'Dell's writing, getting my hands on any of his books that I could find at my elementary school library. It really made me into a reader. But I hadn't read it in about a decade, and I was curious how well it would hold up to my adult mind.

      IT WAS EVEN BETTER!!!

      I originally rated this 4 stars, rather arbitrarily, but this reread proved that this is truly an amazing piece of historical fiction, especially for children. Even for its time, it does a great job at portraying Native American peoples in a humanizing light, as well as young girls (which is amazing, because Scott O'Dell was clearly a white adult male).

      It's compelling and action-packed, and extremely educational. I really felt for Karana as she lives abandoned on an island for the majority of her life, missing her family but feeling unable to leave her home. Making new friends and losing them. Growing and changing as a woman. It's short but it's excellent, and I highly suggest it.
    • 5/5
      Karana planned to leave the dolphin-shaped island with her family and tribe. However, when she sees her little brother left behind on the shore, her split-second decision changes the course of her life. As Karana and her brother struggle to survive alone, she must hunt, find shelter, and contend with nature. When her brother is tragically killed, Karana perseveres as she waits for the boat to return for her. As the seasons pass, Karana realizes that no one is coming for her and she must make a life for herself. Her courage and resourcefulness allows her to survive and, ultimately, to thrive.Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell is classified as children's literature, but I recommend it to all age groups. The story is entertaining and unique. O'Dell captured my imagination from the beginning of the story and carried it through until the end. What fascinated me the most is that the story is based on real-life happenings. I could identify with Karana and admired her throughout the story. A good read for children and adults, alike.
    • 4/5
      5569. Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell (read 14 Jul 2018) Every once in a while I read juvenile books which seem to me I should read. This book is a famed book which purports to tell the story of a girl who lived on San Nicolas Island, off the coast of California alone for 18 years ending in 1853. It seems quite improbable but depicts the girl as quite a resourceful girl, as she lived her Robinson Crusoe existence. It reads easily and I even found it a bit poignant,, particularly when her dog--which she had tamed from the feral state--dies. And the girl evolves,on her own, from a killer of animals to a more likeable persona. I have read less interesting juvenile books.
    • 4/5
      This 1960 novel of a girl who is left all alone on a smallish island when the rest of her people relocate elsewhere was, I think, already considered something of a classic when I first read it as a kid in the 1970s. I think I actually read it several times, but I remembered very little about it -- just enough for me to feel a sense of deja vu on re-reading it now.And I was surprised by how well it held up. Adult me wasn't quite as enthralled with the story as I think young me was, reading what was probably the first such survival tale I ever encountered, and I did find myself wishing, just a little, for a longer, more fleshed-out and detailed telling. But I can absolutely see why kid me found it compelling, and I still liked it and even, in the end, found it unexpectedly moving. Also, how glad am I that, in reviewing a book from 1960 about a girl from an indigenous society, I don't have to add comments like, "Well, you do have to keep in mind that it's a product of its time"? Very. Very glad.What I'm really wondering now, though, is how I ever managed to forget the fact that this was based on a true story, albeit one about which very few details are known. That really does add an extra layer of poignancy to the experience of reading it, I think. You can't help but wonder about the lost story of the poor woman (probably not a girl as young as the one in the novel) who actually lived this life, or one like it.
    • 4/5
      I first read this in 3rd or 4th grade, but I didn't remember most of what happened so I don't even count it as a reread. This is a classic book about Karana, a Native American girl who is left behind on an island off the California coast in the 1800s (what I didn't know was that it was based on a true story, which is pretty cool). She spends many years (mostly) alone, surviving on her own with the occasional animal and human companion. This is a very internal book, made up mostly of descriptions of Karana's thoughts and actions. It is beautifully written, and even though you get the sense that nothing bad will happen to her, the suspense is still present. Although, the ending seems a little more ambiguous now that I'm reading it as an adult...
    • 5/5
      The story is about a girl who stays behind on an island for her brother when her entire tribe leaves on a boat. She is left alone to survive and she thrives and protects herself. This story challenges social norms and gender roles in both her culture as well as my own.
    • 5/5
      liked it! Sad though in some places.
    • 3/5
      I know that I read this as a kid, but I don't really remember liking it that much then. I liked it better this time.
    • 5/5
      This is the first of many Scott O'Dell books I have read. A young Native American girl is stranded on an island off of California in the days when Spanish monasteries were being built. She must find a way to survive not only physically, but also the depths of despair and loneliness. Compelling writing, I felt as if I was living her life as I read.
    • 4/5
      This was actually a re-read. I first read it in grade school and it was just as good this time around. Great girl survivor story.
    • 3/5
      This book is about a girl called karana who is left in a island for a long period of time. She becomes a master of living in a island by her self. I think this story was fun but sometimes a little sad because she had no accompany. But luckly at last she finds a ship coming and leaves the island but eventually she came back.
    • 4/5
      A short read. The story was fun to read for a little bit of entertainment, i woulnt say that the story got me into the book that much, it was kind of out there for me. Not to much depth but that makes my point about it being good for a light read. You do not have to get into it like a sersios book, i makes you feel relaxed about reading a story.
    • 4/5
      This is a story of a young girl, Karana, living on an island with her people. A ship comes to take them away from the island after many of their people were massacred by hunters. The people no longer wanted to live there anymore. Karana is ready to leave on the ship with the rest of her people when she realizes her brother is missing. She jumps in the water to go get him and ends up being left as well because of the storms that were coming. Her brother is killed not long after this by a pack of wild dogs, so Karana is left on the island alone. She becomes strong and makes a home for herself as well as weapons. She lives for a long time until a ship does come back and takes her to another land. I thought this book is a good story for young readers. The story that develops here is probably something that children nowadays would ever think about or picture happening to them. Classroom Extensions: I would use this book as literature for the whole class and do shared reading and discussion with it as the students read a chapter a day. This would involve the students making predictions on what might happen and how they feel about the situations Karana is facing everyday. I would have the student write a letter to Karana or a poem for her telling her the way they feel about her situation.
    • 3/5
      I thought this book was just ok. I guess most ratings for this are high because it does have historical merit, but it just did not captivate me.
    • 4/5
      I read this when I was quite young. It is a story of strength, survival, and just how resourceful a young Native American can be even when left all on her own. Images conjured up by reading this book are still in my head.
    • 3/5
      The story of a young girl (I forget her name) who is forced to live alone on an island using nature alone to survive
    • 4/5
      A very interesting story about a young women who lives on a island with her tribe on a island. One day there village is forced to move from the island and she is accidently left behind on the island because she goes back for her brother who missed the boat. She and her brother must live on the island where there a mad dogs on the island and then she has do deal with a terrible tragic thing. This was a pretty good book about survial
    • 5/5
      This book tells the dramatic story of a girl, alone on an island, that has to survive. Can she do it? Find out. A highly recommended read.
    • 4/5
      A Newbery Award winning book from the 1960's, the book tells a story of an Indian girl who survives alone on an island for almost 20 years. The things the girl is able to do are amazing (like fighting a pack of wild dogs) and what is even more amazing is that the book was based on a true story. I couldn't make it a week on an island alone; I'm not outdoorsy or handy and am too used to my creature comforts, like air conditioning.
    • 4/5
      Good book for the people who enjoyed The Cay or Hetchat. It is about the girl who left in the island alone for many years.
    • 5/5
      This book is based on real events, this is the story of Karana, a young Indian girl who lives on the Island of the Blue Dolphins, really the Island San Nicolas. In the story Karana her brother were left marooned on this island when all the villagers left. Time passes as Karana struggles to survive on her own. It is a beautiful story, but very sad.
    • 5/5
      Having just read Hatchet and Julie of the Wolves, I expected an internal story detailing the narrator's struggles to survive and grapple with tragic external events. I was continually surprised to hear the unfolding of the story told with little emotion and much practicality. It was refreshing, as well as realistic - someone raised on an island, with survival the foremost goal, would be practical and unsentimental. Absent here was the struggle to figure out fishing and gathering and protection. This girl is strong, competent, and therefore admirable. An enjoyable story with a great narrator. (Incidentally - its long descriptive scenes sometimes made my thoughts drift, thus accounting for my rating.)
    • 4/5
      It was a really good book for children. If you're planning to join Survivor then you must read this ;p. It was hard to put down. It was really exciting in a way despite the lack of characters. I really love Rontu, it was sad when he died. A nice "coming-of-age" story.
    • 5/5
      I remember loving this book as a kid. I'd like to read it again: I really enjoyed it but I don't remember what it was about.
    • 5/5
      THis book is about a girl who lives on an island all alone. I really liked this book and enjoyed it thoroughly.
    • 3/5
      Sad story taken from the point of view of the indigenous people, when the Old World meets new. Read it on Columbus Day.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my all-time favorites. Karana is left alone to survive on an island after her family leaves. This story is amazing and one that any one can read and enjoy.
    • 5/5
      Outstanding book. I have not read it in years, but it is beautifully written.
    • 4/5
      A simply-told, engaging survival story of a young Indian girl alone on an island. Very little flash or dramatics in this book, which I love. The watercolor illustrations by Ted Lewin are very nearly worth the price of the book alone.

    Book preview

    Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell

    Island of the Blue Dolphins

    The Complete Reader’s Edition

    SCOTT O’DELL

    Island of the Blue Dolphins

    The Complete Reader’s Edition

    EDITED BY

    Sara L. Schwebel

    UC Logo

    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

    University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

    University of California Press

    Oakland, California

    © 2016 by The Regents of the University of California

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Names: O’Dell, Scott, 1898–1989, author. | Schwebel, Sara L., editor.

    Title: Island of the blue dolphins : the complete reader’s edition / Scott O’Dell ; edited by Sara L. Schwebel.

    Description: [Complete reader’s edition]. | Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

    Identifiers: LCCN 2016022328 | ISBN 9780520289376 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-0-520-96406-8 (eBook)

    Subjects: LCSH: O’Dell, Scott, 1898–1989. Island of the blue dolphins. | O’Dell, Scott, 1898–1989—Criticism and interpretation. | Indians of North America—Juvenile fiction. | Indians of North America—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Islands—Fiction.

    Classification: LCC PS3529.D434 I83 2016 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

    LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022328

    Manufactured in the United States of America

    25  24  23  22  21  20  19  18  17  16

    10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

    Contents

    List of Illustrations

    Preface

    Introduction

    Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins

    Text of the First Edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins

    Chapters Excised from Island of the Blue Dolphins Drafts

    Commentary and Contextualization

    Archaeology, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island

    René L. Vellanoweth

    A Counterstory of Native American Persistence

    Carole Goldberg

    Index

    List of Illustrations

    1. Scott O’Dell as a boy, circa 1901

    2. A San Nicolas Island vista, opposite the cave believed to have been used by the Lone Woman

    3. Scott O’Dell at the helm of the Perla Negra, 1972

    4. Scott O’Dell with his wife, Elizabeth Hall, and grandchildren, Lauren Elizabeth Anderson and Scott David Anderson

    5. Scott O’Dell, 1934

    6. Stoneapple Farm, the house in Julian, California, in which Scott O’Dell wrote Island of the Blue Dolphins

    7. Scott O’Dell signing a copy of Island of the Blue Dolphins during a visit to an elementary school in California, circa 1960–61

    8. Houghton Mifflin’s Showings of 1960 book, noting the publisher’s income and expenses for current titles

    9. Scott and Dorsa O’Dell in Spain in late 1963 or early 1964, celebrating the success of Island of the Blue Dolphin

    10. Scott O’Dell and Elizabeth Hall in Germany, 1970

    11. Scott O’Dell meeting with students in Indianapolis, Indiana, 1981

    12. One of several ad mats advertising the film adaptation of Island of the Blue Dolphins

    13. Robert B. Radnitz, producer of the film adaptation of Island of the Blue Dolphins

    14. Celia Kaye, who starred as Karana in the Island of the Blue Dolphins movie, on set in Anchor Bay, 1963

    15. Revisions to Island of the Blue Dolphins’ Author’s Note, Typescript 2

    16. Scott O’Dell’s unpublished sketch of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, created circa 1958

    17. Map of San Nicolas Island and the Island of the Blue Dolphins

    18. Archaeologist Steven J. Schwartz in front of a storage cabinet in the curation facilities on San Nicolas Island, 2012

    19. Students of René L. Vellanoweth work to remove more than forty thousand buckets of sand from the cave believed to have been used by the Lone Woman, her people, and their ancestors

    20. René L. Vellanoweth at the mouth of the cave the Lone Woman is thought to have lived in, 2012

    Preface

    The pages that follow offer the first scholarly edition of Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins, one of the most significant children’s books of the twentieth century. The introductory essay presents O’Dell, a handsome California newspaperman who stumbled into a new career at age sixty, that of world-renowned children’s author. It looks closely at the research O’Dell conducted for Island of the Blue Dolphins, asking: How did this white Californian learn so much about California islanders’ material culture, diet, and contact with Russian hunters and Spanish priests? And what effect did O’Dell’s nineteenth-century sources, including their contention that Indians were destined to disappear, have on the story he told about the Lone Woman, his historical model for Karana? Finally, the essay examines the factors that secured Island of the Blue Dolphins’ status as a classic: everything from listening to a friend’s helpful explanation (You have written a children’s book!) to ignoring the wildly misguided advice of an agent (If you’re serious about this book, change Karana to a boy) to producing a volume that children adore (I had something like love at first sight) and that teachers find ideally suited to their curriculum ("I have read Island of the Blue Dolphins to my class every year for thirteen years").¹

    The introduction is followed by the complete first edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins, annotated with footnotes that address the novel’s composition history and the natural, cultural, and historical environment that formed Karana’s world. Included with this printing are two never-before published chapters, which were excised before the novel originally went to press.

    This volume also includes three short essays written from the perspectives of three different disciplines: literature, archaeology, and law. The first, written by the editor, Sara L. Schwebel, describes the composition history of Island of the Blue Dolphins, detailing broad trends in O’Dell’s revision process and providing technical information about the extant drafts. The second, written by archaeologist René L. Vellanoweth, traces the history of archaeology on San Nicolas Island and provides insight into the personal and professional excitement generated by the discovery of artifacts and a cave that will likely be associated with the Lone Woman. The third essay, written by legal scholar Carole Goldberg, explains why excavation on San Nicolas Island came to a halt shortly after Vellanoweth and his colleagues made their discoveries. Her piece explores the intersection of land rights, tribal sovereignty, and repatriation as related to the Nicoleños, their descendants, and culturally affiliated groups.

    This edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins is designed to enable new generations of readers—both children and adults—to encounter a beloved novel with fresh insights generated by twenty-first-century research.

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    Among the many reasons that Island of the Blue Dolphins continues to be widely taught in K–12 classrooms is its value for interdisciplinary instruction. The novel combines beautiful imagery with an environmental message and an actual historical figure, a Nicoleña who crossed paths with people from multiple Native American and European cultures during the mid-nineteenth century. That same combination of literature, science, and history makes producing a scholarly treatment of Island of the Blue Dolphins challenging; I am grateful to the many people who helped with the task.

    Four years ago, I was surprised to receive a phone call in response to a webform I had submitted to Channel Islands National Park (CINP). I had written—without much hope of hearing back—to ask if I might be connected to park staff who field classroom teachers’ questions about Island of the Blue Dolphins. That first phone call with Carol Peterson, the park’s education coordinator, changed everything.

    During one of my early visits to CINP’s headquarters in Ventura, California, Carol introduced me to a host of California scholars and museum educators, and Yvonne Menard, chief of interpretation and public information officer, welcomed me onto a team engaged in building an educational website centered on Island of the Blue Dolphins and the Lone Woman. That website (aimed especially at school-aged children, their teachers, and their families) and this volume are companion projects. I thank Carol, Yvonne, and Russell Galipeau, CINP’s superintendent, for the opportunity to engage in such meaningful, collaborative work.

    One of the most important connections Carol facilitated for me was with Susan Morris, researcher extraordinaire. Together with Steve Schwartz, she contributed to this volume a joint map of San Nicolas Island and the Island of the Blue Dolphins. But Susan’s acumen and Steve’s tremendous knowledge of the island and its archaeological record are evidenced on many other pages of this book. I am indebted to them for their assistance.

    Compiling the notes accompanying this reprinting of Island of the Blue Dolphins would not have been possible without the expertise of many scholars. I am deeply appreciative for the assistance of archaeologists Steve Schwartz (U.S. Navy, retired) and René Vellanoweth (California State University); ethnobotanist Jan Timbrook (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History); and linguists Pamela Munro (UCLA) and Richard Applegate (Central Chumash languages revitalization). Of course, any errors and ambiguities remain my responsibility.

    For her invaluable assistance with the collation of Island of the Blue Dolphins typescripts, I thank my peerless research assistant Rachel Manuszak; she has been central to this project. Thanks also to Laura Marion, who, together with Rachel, cataloged the book collection at Stoneapple Farm, where O’Dell wrote Karana’s story. For research assistance in Boston and Los Angeles, I thank George Mills and Caleb Shelburne (Houghton Library) and Isaac Rooks (Cinematic Arts Library, University of Southern California).

    Both the vitality of a biography’s details and the pleasure of writing a life history are enriched by contact with the subject’s family. In creating this volume, I had the great pleasure of meeting Dorsa O’Dell’s niece, Gillian Gilhool, and her husband, Tom, and of being hosted at Stoneapple Farm, the cozy writers’ cottage the Gilhools have lovingly preserved. I am deeply indebted to their generosity in sharing several boxes of archival material previously unexamined by scholars as well as many touching, and at times hilarious, family stories about Aunt Jane and Uncle Scott. I am delighted to restore Dorsa to her rightful place in the history of Island of the Blue Dolphins’ creation.

    I am profoundly grateful to Elizabeth Hall, Scott O’Dell’s wife during the decades in which he was most prolific. As I completed this volume, Elizabeth relocated to North Carolina, which facilitated multiple visits between us. I thank her for sharing wonderful stories, for opening up her personal archive, and for making a wealth of Scott O’Dell materials available to scholars at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Most of all, I thank Elizabeth for permission to quote from O’Dell’s outlines, drafts, and correspondence, which has helped bring a beloved author and his work to life for readers in a new way. Thanks, too, to Lauren Gerber, Elizabeth’s granddaughter, for preparing photographs of O’Dell for this volume.

    Many librarians and curators helped to make this book possible. Thanks to Kris Kiesling, Caitlin Marineau, and Lisa Von Drasek at the Kerlan Collection (University of Minnesota Libraries); Leslie Morris at Houghton Library (Harvard); Susan Steinway at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s corporate archives; Christopher Brown at the Free Library of Philadelphia; Bruce Tabb at the University of Oregon Libraries; Sandra Garcia-Myers, Edward Comstock, and Bree Russell at the University of Southern California Libraries; Liza Posas of the Braun Research Library (Autry Museum of the American West); and Elizabeth Sudduth, Kate Boyd, Amber Cook, and Amie Freeman at the University of South Carolina Libraries.

    Copyright fees, combined with the far-flung distribution of papers on O’Dell and the Lone Woman, made creating this edition costly. Financial assistance came from many sources, including a University of South Carolina ASPIRE-I Innovation Grant; the office of the University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences’ dean, Mary Anne Fitzpatrick; the Daughters of the American Revolution Special Projects Grant; a University of South Carolina Walker Institute Faculty Research Grant; the University of Minnesota Libraries Elmer L. Andersen Research Scholars Program Grant; and the Children’s Literature Association Faculty Research Grant. I am extremely grateful for this support.

    Numerous colleagues strengthened this volume. I thank Peter Nelson for answering questions about the archaeology of persistence and for pointing me to a wealth of California scholarship, and Nick Tipon for sharing his work on the Sacred Sites Committee of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, and for mediating my visit to the Kunstkamera museum in Saint Petersburg. I’m grateful to Robin Joy (Fort Ross State Historic Park) for organizing a research and lecture trip to Russia and to all my traveling companions, from whom I learned much about the interactions of the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo with Russians during the nineteenth century. Stateside, I thank Jerry Lassos for speaking with me openly and passionately about what archaeological work on San Nicolas Island means for him as a Tongva educator.

    I’m grateful to the Children’s Literature Association and its community of scholars; special thanks to the University of Florida contingent for helpful feedback during my 2015 visit to the university’s campus, and to the Children’s Literature Association’s International Committee for their tremendous assistance in connecting me to colleagues in Russia. The University of South Carolina Department of English offers a wonderfully nurturing environment for scholarship; thanks to all of my USC colleagues for ongoing support and especially to those who helped bring this project to fruition: Paula Feldman, Brian Glavey, David Greven, Dianne Johnson, Catherine Keyser, Nina Levine, Greta Little, Joel Myerson, and Bill Rivers. My thanks, too, to the staff of the University of South Carolina Center for Digital Humanities, especially to Colin Wilder and David Miller, and to the phenomenal group of University of South Carolina undergraduates who have assisted with the Lone Woman and Last Indians project for several years: Sydney Cowart, Tyler Encke, Eric Gonzalez, Paige Kuester, Elizabeth A. Matthews, Alexis Michalos, and Tyler Muehl. I thank Judy Kertész and Margot Minardi, friends from graduate school, who remain among the very best readers of my work.

    A heartfelt thank you to Carole Goldberg and René Vellanoweth for contributing essays that greatly enrich this volume, to Genevieve Thurston for expert copyediting, and to Niels Hooper, Bradley Depew, and Dore Brown at the University of California Press for bringing this book to publication.

    NOTES

    1. Quotations are from Betsy-Tacy author Maud Lovelace; Caroline Sauer at McIntosh and Otis; David Hubbard, a child in Utah; and Suzanne Turner, a teacher in Virginia. The first two quotations derive from oral accounts and are paraphrased. For the last two quotations, see Scott O’Dell Papers, 1957–2008 (hereafter referred to as Kerlan), Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature Research Collection, University of Minnesota Libraries, box 3, folder 25.

    Introduction

    One month before Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins went on sale for the first time, on February 18, 1960, Houghton Mifflin’s Hardwick Moseley wrote to the author to wish him and his wife, Dorsa, a happy New Year: I hope that you both enjoyed happy holidays, and that the sixties will be delightful, happy and prosperous. Maybe Houghton Mifflin Company will take care of the prosperity part. We shall try very hard.¹ As the tone of the letter suggests, O’Dell and Moseley were old friends. They had met because O’Dell was book columnist for the Los Angeles Mirror and book editor for the Los Angeles Daily News, and Moseley, Houghton Mifflin’s West Coast sales representative, had wanted his books to receive good press. A mutual delight in literature and frequent opportunities to socialize in Los Angeles solidified the men’s friendship. At the time, O’Dell had a number of publications to his name, including three novels, Woman of Spain: A Story of Old California (1934), Hill of the Hawk (1947), and The Sea Is Red (1958), as well as the nonfiction Man Alone (1953), written with William Doyle, and Country of the Sun: Southern California, an Informal History and Guide (1957). He had led an eclectic life as a former Hollywood man, veteran, journalist, novelist, and amateur historian—O’Dell was all these things during the 1940s and ’50s. But he was not a children’s author.

    Yet Moseley’s New Year’s greetings promised O’Dell that, "if the B.D.’s [Island of the Blue Dolphins] does as well as we expect you will be one of the best known writers in the children’s book world."² The words proved prophetic. O’Dell’s novel was a commercial success from the start, selling more copies than equivalent titles for child readers in the United States during its opening spring sales season. That fall, it captured the Newbery Medal, a coveted prize awarded by the American Library Association to the most distinguished work of U.S. literature written for children. A British edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins appeared in 1961, and the first translations of the book followed. Just a few years later, in 1964, children and their families in the United States and abroad watched O’Dell’s protagonist, Karana, come alive on the silver screen. By 1972, the novel’s international reputation was solidified when O’Dell won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, a prestigious prize presented to one living author whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children’s literature. This biennial prize, granted by the International Board on Books for Young People, has been conferred on a U.S. author only five times since its inception in 1956.

    By any measure, then, Island of the Blue Dolphins ranks among the most important children’s books of the twentieth century. In 2015, there were more than 8.5 million copies of it in print in the United States.³ The novel has surpassed in sales all other Newbery Medal–winning books and all other children’s historical novels in the United States. But perhaps more importantly, Island of the Blue Dolphins has long been a staple of the K-12 classroom. Statistics are difficult to obtain, given the absence of a national curriculum in the United States, but one way to measure the novel’s reach is by examining the number of Island of the Blue Dolphins quizzes taken by students using Accelerated Reader, a popular commercial literacy program used in more than one-third of American schools and in sixty countries worldwide. In 2015, fifty-five years after its original publication, Island of the Blue Dolphins was selected as pleasure reading by students in every grade between first and twelfth who took Accelerated Reader quizzes, and it ranked as the seventeenth most frequently read work among fourth grade students using the program (fourth graders who took the quizzes collectively read more than 140,000 distinct titles). Accelerated Reader includes quizzes for a range of children’s books, including current bestselling series. According to the program’s staff, Island of the Blue Dolphins is one of a very small number of classics that students elect to read year after year.⁴ What explains the novel’s longevity and global reach?

    Island of the Blue Dolphins capitalizes on a true story that has long fascinated the public, a story that became the special province of children only after the 1960 appearance of O’Dell’s novel. Island of the Blue Dolphins, readers will recall, narrates the life of Karana, the twelve-year-old daughter of Chowig, chief of Ghalas-at, the sole village on the Island of the Blue Dolphins (San Nicolas Island). The novel opens with the arrival of a ship with red sails, captained by a Russian and carrying Aleut sea otter hunters. Karana and her peers have never seen a large sailing vessel, but the adults have. Years previous, readers are told, they were tricked into hunting sea otter day and night for a demanding Russian captain. This time, the community knows to negotiate its terms. Nonetheless, disaster strikes. When the hunters attempt to leave without paying for their catch, Karana’s father moves to prevent their treachery. Twenty-seven men, Chief Chowig included, are killed, leaving only eight able-bodied males standing. The newly appointed chief ensures the community’s survival by instructing women to perform tasks traditionally reserved for men. Hunger is averted, but social tensions multiply to the extent that the chief realizes that another solution must be found. He sets off on a long journey to the mainland. Nearly a year later, a European ship arrives, captained by a man who informs the Ghalas-at people that their chief has sent for them. All climb aboard, hurrying to set sail before a storm materializes. Once on deck, however, Karana realizes that her younger brother is missing. When her pleas to return go unheeded, she flings herself into the sea. Karana expects the ship to return within weeks, but it never does. Long before she registers this fact, however, her brother is killed by wild dogs, and she is left alone. Mastering her fear and drawing on her strength as a Ghalas-at woman, she learns to construct and wield weapons to protect herself from danger. Animals provide her with companionship and purpose that enable her to survive eighteen years of solitude emotionally intact. When otter hunters and a Spanish priest appear nearly two decades later, Karana allows herself to be discovered. She misses the sound of human voices and longs to be reunited with her sister, even if it means leaving the home of her people and her ancestors. She climbs aboard the ship with the captain and crew and sails for Santa Barbara, bringing with her an otter cape, a cormorant skirt, a necklace of beads, three baskets, a cage holding her two young pet birds, and her dog, Rontu-Aru.

    The story of Karana is in essence the story of a nineteenth-century Nicoleña who posthumously became known as the Lone (or Lost) Woman of San Nicolas Island.⁵ In 1853, after spending eighteen solitary years on the most remote of California’s Channel Islands, the Lone Woman was brought to Santa Barbara, California, where she was conditionally baptized Juana María. But because the Lone Woman died after only seven weeks on the mainland, she was never able to tell her story, as no one who spoke her island tongue could be found during that short period. Nevertheless, accounts of her ordeal abound. The people of San Nicolas—the island was so named by Sebastián Vizcaíno, who sailed past it in 1602—had no direct contact with Europeans until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The island, twenty-two square miles in size, was at a sixty-mile remove from Spanish California and considerably farther from Russian California’s nearest settlement. But geographical distance shrank during the nineteenth century, when sailing ships began to dot the Pacific as people attempted to draw profit from the sea. As demand for otter furs rose and animal populations were depleted near the coasts of Alaska and Northern California, the Russian American Company (RAC) began sending its Alaska Native hunters, accompanied by Russian overseers, to California’s Channel Islands. At this time, archaeologist Steven J. Schwartz estimates, the population of San Nicolas Island probably numbered between two hundred and three hundred people.⁶ But by 1814, the community was devastated. An RAC ship, the Il’mena, deposited a group of Kodiak Islanders to hunt sea otter on the island.⁷ These Alaska Natives were conscripted workers laboring for the colonial power that controlled their homeland (the RAC was a private mercantile enterprise operating under royal oversight and was granted monopolistic rights to the fur trade in Russia’s North American possessions). Conflict between the Kodiak hunters and the Nicoleños erupted, and while the Alaska Natives were likely outnumbered, they were equipped with superior weapons. At the end of the skirmish, most of the Nicoleños were dead.⁸ This 1814 conflict is fictionalized in Island of the Blue Dolphins: Karana and her sister witness from the cliff the battle that kills their father, the chief, as well as most of the village’s other men. In O’Dell’s tale, the Ghalas-at community leaves for the California mainland approximately one year later.

    The historical record suggests that the Nicoleño population continued to decline after the massacre, undoubtedly as a result of exposure to new diseases (otter hunters continued to frequent the island). Just over twenty years after the 1814 catastrophe, a ship from Mexican California, the Peor es Nada, arrived at San Nicolas with the purpose of removing the much-diminished island population. The ship’s crew encountered a straggling community, likely numbering fewer than twenty individuals. The island Natives were brought on board and taken to San Pedro, Los Angeles’s port, where they were placed in the care of local, non-Native, Catholic families.⁹ For unknown reasons, however, one adult Nicoleña was left behind during this otherwise wholesale removal of the population to mainland California. Some accounts indicate that she was left on the island with a child (or two young children). The Lone Woman’s abandonment on the remote Channel Island was widely known along the California coast; newspapers reported the fact as early as the 1840s. Nonetheless, no effort was made to collect her. It was not until 1852 that a crew of European Americans and California Indians, led by George Nidever, set out to find the Lone Woman as a side task to their sea otter hunting. They eventually succeeded, bringing her to Santa Barbara in 1853, eighteen years after the rest of her community had been removed from the island. She was middle aged and in good health when she arrived, and she had with her a number of items of her manufacture, including clothing made of cormorant feathers, a necklace, needles, a fishhook, and a bone knife.¹⁰

    The story of the Lone Woman’s eighteen years of solitary survival was so compelling to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century readers that it circulated in popular periodicals in the United States and beyond nearly continuously between 1847 and the 1920s; it then became a popular subject in amateur and academic scientific writings for many decades.¹¹ In fact, the narrative of the Lone Woman’s extraordinary experience never faded completely from public view, particularly in California, where the story had always appeared with greatest frequency. As a newspaperman who lived and worked in Los Angeles, O’Dell would have encountered the story (or perhaps encountered it again) in the postwar years. In 1950, shortly before the hundredth anniversary of the Lone Woman’s arrival in Santa Barbara, the most influential account of her life was republished, locally, in booklet form. Emma Hardacre’s Eighteen Years Alone, which first appeared in Scribner’s Monthly in 1880, told the entire narrative of the Lone Woman’s life, from her people’s violent confrontation with Alaska Natives to her removal from the island, conditional baptism, and death in Santa Barbara. Shortly after Hardacre’s account was republished in Santa Barbara, the California Academy of Science’s natural history magazine, Pacific Discovery, featured an article on the Lone Woman’s people, written by archaeologist Clement W. Meighan. His essay about the Nicoleños retold the story of the Lone Woman but noted that details of the woman’s life on the island can never be known because she died before anyone who spoke her language could be found. Given the Nicoleña’s extraordinary life, Meighan observed, the Lone Woman could no doubt have told a story which would eclipse Daniel Defoe’s tale of Robinson Crusoe.¹² O’Dell had a clear opening.¹³

    SCOTT O’DELL’S SOURCES

    O’Dell’s research on the Lone Woman actually predated his creative work on Island of the Blue Dolphins by several years. He first narrated the tale of her eighteen years of solitude in Country of the Sun: Southern California, an Informal History and Guide (1957). Ostensibly a history (an evidence-based narrative that strives for objectivity), Country of the Sun’s breezy narrative reads like the newspaperman’s account that it is. Yet a comparison of Country of the Sun and Island of the Blue Dolphins shows O’Dell’s concern for genre expectations: history should be objective and factual, whereas fiction can imagine beyond the confines of evidence. Country of the Sun’s two-and-a-half-page narration of the Lone Woman’s story thus adheres closely to the sources that O’Dell consulted: turn-of-the-century accounts of the Lone Woman, such as the one written by Emma Hardacre. This doesn’t mean that everything in Country of the Sun’s narrative is true, however. Early accounts of the story published in periodicals offered some colorful details. For example, when O’Dell writes about the 1835 removal of the Nicoleños to San Pedro, on board the Peor es Nada, he notes that the Lone Woman leaped into the sea and swam back to shore because her child had been left on the island.¹⁴ This widely reported fact is almost certainly mythic, but it appeared consistently in historical accounts, and O’Dell likely assumed it was true. We can see this by the way he handled the detail in Island of the Blue Dolphins. When O’Dell moved from history writing to fiction, he felt free to invent details. In the novel, Karana flings herself overboard and swims ashore in order to find a forgotten younger brother, not her own child. This reason was more appropriate for young readers, and O’Dell felt strongly that a mother wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, forget her own offspring.¹⁵

    If O’Dell was concerned about accuracy in his history writing, he was concerned about creativity in his fiction writing. He omits from Island of the Blue Dolphins but includes in Country of the Sun the fact that the American sea otter hunter George Nidever found footprints made by the Lone Woman in the San Nicolas sand in 1852, a sign that the rumors were correct: the island Native was still alive more than a decade and a half after her abandonment. This detail, repeated in many nineteenth-century accounts of the Lone Woman, echoes the similar discovery of footprints in the sand by Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe on his (supposedly) deserted island.¹⁶ O’Dell determined that including the footprints in Island of the Blue Dolphins would too obviously parallel Robinson Crusoe and thereby open him to accusations of literary derivation.¹⁷ So he decided that it was better to leave the detail out, even though it was true. O’Dell was concerned, then, with maintaining a reputation for accuracy (in his journalistic history writing) and creativity (in his literary fiction).

    Although a history, Country of the Sun contains no footnotes or bibliography, just a short list of books suggested for further reading. Island of the Blue Dolphins is more helpful in pointing to texts O’Dell may have consulted. Its author’s note mentions by name two historical sources, one historical person, and two museums with holdings from San Nicolas Island. Specifically listed are the reports of Captain Hubbard (a mariner) and the records of Captain Nidever (a sea otter hunter), as well as the individuals Father Gonzalez (one of three priests residing at Santa Barbara Mission in 1853), Bernice Eastman Johnston (a longtime docent and researcher at the Southwest Museum of the American Indian in Los Angeles), and Fletcher Carr (a retired curator who had worked at the San Diego Museum of Man).¹⁸ Unfortunately, none of O’Dell’s research notes or bibliographies have been found. Nonetheless, the above information, combined with textual details from Island of the Blue Dolphins and (admittedly inconsistent) interviews O’Dell granted after the book’s publication, provides a good indication of the author’s likely sources.¹⁹

    Captain George Nidever, whose records O’Dell cites, was a frontiersman. Born in eastern Tennessee at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he moved gradually west, pursuing a range of economic activities including hunting, trapping, occasional Indian fighting, gold mining, and land speculation. He was born two generations after Daniel Boone, however, and his landscape was California rather than

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