The title of Island of the Blue Dolphins, lovely in sound and evocative in all its key words (for the 'blue' transfers itself to the ocean), sums up the attraction of the O'Dell world. But it is not a matter of settings alone; this is an admirable novel; and its successor, The King's Fifth (1966), is to my mind even finer, although in Britain it is not well known. The subsequent O'Dell books, up to the time of writing, have been slighter. Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960)...

Each year, with the increase in number of children's books, it is often necessary to retreat from the volume of present publication to reexamine those works which have, for various reasons, endured to become classics. One such work is Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins…. Although the desert island motif has been a standard fictional theme since Shakespeare's Tempest and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, O'Dell is faced with several new problems. Because he is ...

Karana, the Indian girl left to survive alone for 18 years [in Island of the Blue Dolphins] was a one-in-a-million child protagonist—a loner free to work her destiny totally without interference from adults…. The jacket copy of Scott O'Dell's new book, Zia, notes that O'Dell has received many requests to tell what happened to Karana, and one can see in this novel some of the tension between the pressure to produce a good storyteller's sequel and the author's ...

Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Yearling [by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings] and It's Like This, Cat [by Emily Neville] illustrate what can happen to a hero or heroine separated from normal companionship. These children use love for an animal to fill the void in their lives…. All three stories show that the protagonist gains strength to cope…. (p. 145) These stories are among the most beautiful compositions available for children because the emotion of love described has the shimmering quali...

Occasionally we rejoice to find a book not written to fulfill any need or with any audience in mind, but simply because the subject has seized the author's imagination and he had to write it. These are usually books that quietly take hold of us and make our lives the richer for having read them. Such is "Island of the Blue Dolphins." We will never forget the quiet courage and resourcefulness of Karana, creating a beautiful and satisfying existence for herself during eighteen solitary ye...

["Island of the Blue Dolphins"] is a romance only in the older sense of the word. It has no hero, no frills, none of the usual feminine props, but I think that thoughtful readers will be willing to forego these for the sake of an unusual experience. The setting is a remote California island where, from 1835 to 1853 an Indian woman, known to history as the Lost Woman of San Nicolas lived alone. Mr. O'Dell has used the few facts known about her as the basis for a haunting story of a young...

It is an act of bravery for an author, after so many years, to pick up and rework the threads of a story that has achieved such resounding success. But for Scott O'Dell, the return [in Zia] to the setting of Island of the Blue Dolphins means a return to his fundamental interest in early California history. Not a sequel in the strict sense, the story should be welcomed by young readers who, much more than adults, care passionately about a favorite character and long to know what happened afterwards&#x...

The rare quality of [Island of the Blue Dolphins] lies in Mr. O'Dell's ability to depict the majesty of the heroine's lonely struggle…. The story is well written and the main character is vividly presented. (p. 47) The heroine's control of her emotions and her realistic appraisal of the situation are stressed by the author. The motivations of the Indian girl are examined in greater depth than is usually accorded the fictional Indian. Young adults will admire and respect Ka...

It would be easy for the reviewer to compare ["Zia"] to the earlier ["Island of the Blue Dolphins"] and bemoan the fact that sequels are risky. But the truth is that "Zia" is a completely fresh creation, rich in character and action. The ending of the story, in which Karana gives her niece the courage to leave the Mission and rediscover her tribal heritage, is both surprising and correct—as it always is in good fiction. Once again Scott O'Dell has used...

Despite a series of highly dramatic incidents [in Sarah Bishop], the story line is basically sharp and clear; O'Dell's messages about the bitterness and folly of war, the dangers of superstition, and the courage of the human spirit are smoothly woven into the story, as are the telling details of period and place. To many readers, the primary appeal of the book may be the way in which Sarah, like the heroine of Island of the Blue Dolphins, like Robinson Crusoe, makes a comfortable life in the i...