This was one of my best-loved books as a girl. It was one of those books that I read over and over, with whole passages that I knew by heart.It's about a girl who gets stranded on an island, accidentally left behind by her tribe.
She spends years alone on this island, learning to fish and forage and survive on her own. Her closest companion is a wild dog she names Rontu.
One of my favorite games was to go out in my backyard and pretend that I was the heroine of Island of the Blue Dolphins, and the backyard was my island.
I'd look for flat rocks to use for dishes, and I'd try to sew leaves together with long pieces of grass. I didn't have much success with the leaf sewing, though...and I'm not sure what purpose the end product was supposed to serve, anyway. (Fortunately, I managed to survive on my "island" without it.)
I can't recall how old I was when I used to play this game. But however old I was, I was old enough that I'd have died of embarrassment if anyone had known I played it.
I remember one day, I was out gathering my "dinner" (foraging for roots, acorns, and assorted "island" food), when all of a sudden, I heard a snicker.
I looked up, and on the other side of the chain link fence was Lynelle, a girl a couple of years older than I was, who lived in the house behind mine.
"Are you playing house?" she sneered, incredulous.
If I could have disappeared into the ground, I would have. I wondered how long she'd been standing there, watching me talk to my imaginary wild dog while arranging my rock plates on a tree stump.
"Of course I'm not playing house," I retorted, red faced.
And I wasn't. I was playing Island of the Blue Dolphins. And anyone with any sense would know that playing Island of the Blue Dolphins was way more mature and sophisticated than playing house!
I couldn't tell Lynelle that, of course. All imaginary games were "house" to her.
"Then what are you doing?" she challenged.
"I was just cleaning up the backyard. My mom told me to."
I could tell she didn't believe me. "Well, it looked like you were playing house to me."
She smirked again and turned around and walked off.
I remember feeling completely humiliated, desperately hoping she wasn't going to tell all the kids in the neighborhood. And I was angry. My "island" was sacred. I didn't like the fact that Lynelle had invaded it.
(The heroine in Island of the Blue Dolphins was lucky. She didn't have Lynelle to contend with on her island!)
I comforted myself by imagining that sharks got her as she made her way back across the ocean to her house. *hee hee*
A couple of years ago, I retrieved Island of the Blue Dolphins from my bookcase to read aloud to my two younger kids. (We start each homeschool day by reading a chapter from a book).
The book was as wonderful as I remembered. :-)
In fact, when I got to the part of the story where Rontu dies, I found (to my kids' great amusement and delight) that I couldn't even read it out loud. I kept having to stop reading because I was crying. *sniff sniff*
Finally, my daughter had to take the book away from me, and she finished reading the passage about Rontu's death.
No doubt Lynelle would have laughed, but that's okay. It wouldn't embarrass me anymore.
I know now that a great book makes things come alive. It makes you believe in islands you've never seen, and it makes you love dogs you've never known. A great book is an entire universe between two covers.
That is an amazing thing.
