Scott O'Dell

After reading "The Matchlock Gun" a Newberry Medalist, and being slightly disappointed...I have decided to try to read more Newberry Medalist and Honor books to see which ones are really worth studying or having my kids read when they get there. I just finished "The Island of the Blue Dolphins" and "Sing Down the Moon." They are both written by Scott O'Dell (the same author that wrote Sarah Bishop).
I had tried to read "The Island of the Blue Dolphins" a few years ago and never got past the first couple pages. I'm not sure why because it was a very interesting book. It is about an Indian girl who lives with her tribe on an island off the coast of California (which I found very intriguing, since I looked for these islands every time we drove to my grandparents house in Santa Barbara). Her tribe leaves on a ship with white men, but she is left behind and has to learn how to live by herself on the island for 18 years until she is recued. That part of the story is true, the rest of the story - how she manages to survive - is the author's creativity. I love stories about girl's or women who are strong and even a little wild. Maybe somewhere underneath my outer shell of living the typical 'good' life, there is a part of me that imagines myself living alone in a forest with nothing but animals to keep me company (actually, I used to write stories about that as a kid). I guess I should just picture my house as a forest and my children as animals (not too hard to do) and I'm good. I definately liked this book and thought it worthy of the Newberry Medal.
I read "Sing Down the Moon" in three nights of reading before bed. This one is also about an Indian girl. This time it's the Navaho tribe in Arizona. The mood in this story is definately darker as it deals with the hardships the Navaho tribe faced as they were forced to march into captivity by the white man. I was continually surprised at how matter of fact the wording was. Not once did I find myself overcome with emotion as these horrible events were described. It was as though I myself became like the Old Men in the book, beyond caring or feeling. I found myself just reading the pages with not much hope of a better future for the characters in the story. But, lest you think that this book is depressing and therefore not worth reading, it actually does have a happy ending and in doing so the book mirrors the lives of the Navahos as they struggled through this oppressiveness to eventually be released from the white man to return to their homes. So yes, I think it is well deserving of it's Newberry honor and look forward to reading some more works of Scott O'Dell.