Island of the Blue Dolphins
Recommended. Age: 10+. A Catholic review of this book for parents.
Our review
Karana is left alone on an island when her people sail away. She builds a home, finds food, and makes friends with a wild dog and other animals. Some parts are sad and scary, so it is best for kids about ten and up. This is a clean, brave book. Karana sets out to kill the dog that led the pack against her brother and spares it, and it becomes her friend. She later befriends a girl from the people who killed her father. There is no bad language and nothing sexual. The deaths are real and they hurt, so read it with a tender child.
For parents
Read aloud from eight or nine. Independent reading from ten, which is where Kolbe places it in grade 5. Warn a sensitive child that Karana's father dies in a fight and her little brother is killed by wild dogs early on. Ask: why does Karana not kill the dog when she can? Ask what changes when she decides to stop hunting the animals around her. People are worth more than animals, and we are still meant to care for what God made. Ask how she kept hope with no one to talk to, and who is with us when we are alone. Karana's people believe in two gods, trust a medicine man and think their chief can talk with the dead. Tell your child this is what her tribe believed before they heard the Gospel, that there is one God who made the island and the sea, and that we pray for the dead and do not try to call them up. The book ends at a Catholic mission, a good chance to look up the California missions together.