Summary

The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell is a story about a girl named Karana trying to survive all by herself on a big empty island. Karana runs into many hard and challenging troubles, but somehow manages to pull through them. Karana is a brilliant, young girl who learns from watching and then doing. Karana does what most people wouldn't even dream of doing, she was able to survive without any assitance. Karana and her tribe live on The Island of the Blue Dolphins. The Aluets are her tribe's enemies. In the begininning the Aluets come to her island and ask to hunt for seal there. The tribe agrees aslong as they get some profit, which the Aluets agreed to. Soon the tribe learned that the Aluets lied and had tried to leave. The tribe's men caught them before they could leave and things quickely turned into battle. The Aluets won, and the trube lost most of their men. The new cheif went to find new land, and one summer later the white men came to the island with a ship saying that their cheif had found new land, and to come with them. The tribe boarded the ship, but Karana released that Ramo, her younger brother, wasn't on the ship. Karana jumped off the ship, and swam to land to be with her brother, while the ship sailed away. The next day Karana woke up and Ramo wasn't with her. She searched until she found Ramo's dead body mauled by the wild dogs. Karana swore that she would kill every last one of the wild dogs. Over the next couple of years Karana learned how to make a very strong house, sharp, deadily tools, how to cook all different types of food, how to hunt, and most importantly how to stay safe from the wild dogs. Karana finally built enough arrows to go attack the wild dogs, she killed the ost of them but the leader was still alive, but wounded. Karana doesnt know what made her decide to nurse the dog back to health, but she did. She and the dog, which she later named Rontu, became very close and never went anywhere without the other. The Aluets came back to the island, and Karana was prepared becuase she had a cave with everything she could possiblely need while the Aluets stayed there. One morning Karana was sitting on the edge of the cave when she saw Tutok. She and Tutok became very close friends, sharing words in their different languages. But Tutok soon had to leave, leaving Karana all alone once again. One day Rontu passed away. Karana didn't leave the house for awhile after the death of her only friend she could talk to. But Karana's missery didnt last long, becuase she found Rontu's son. She welcomed him into her home and they were like peas and carrots. She named this new dog Aru Rontu. meaning son of Rontu. Two summers after that the white men finally came back to get her after 18 years of being alone on the island. She boarded the ship with everyting she held dear to her, includng Aru Rontu, and headed to finally see her people again.

Character Descripitons

Karana is a extremely courageaus, resourceful, resilience and forgivining character. Karana is courageaus because she has to feed herself and while hunting she could get killed by an animal. Karana is resourceful because she lives on the island and has to build a home, find water, protect herself, and feed herself. Karana is forgiving because she forgives the pack of wild dogs and nurses the leader back to health and she forgave the Aleuts. Karana has resilience beacause she made her life comfortable on the island, while waiting 18 years for the white men to come and get her. She was often very sad. Like when her brother died, or when she was injured by the sea elephant. She never gave up, she always just looked forward. Karana had dark skin, dark, long, brown hair, with big brown eyes.
Ramo is proud and confident of himself and his heritage. Ramo often acts rash. Ramo had big brown eyes, and short shaggy dark brown hair. Ramo is often reckless, because he went back to his village during the storm and made Karana and himself miss the boat. Also Ramo left early to go get the canoe and was killed by the will dogs.
The Aluets were lying, untruthful people. The Aluets lied to Karana's father, they said "We will share our profits of seals with you." But, when it came time for the Aluets to share the profit, they tried to run away. Things turned into a battle quickley and left the tribe without many men. They were untruthful because they broke their promiss to bring the seal to Karana's village.

Setting Descriptions

The setting of The Island of the Blue Dolphins was very windy. Karana struggled to find a safe spot where she was protected from the harsh winds coming from all different directions. Of course Karana lived on an island based on the name of the book, so the island was shaped like a dolphin. When it came time for Karana to build her own shelter she had to search many suns and moons to find wood, because the island has very little building wood. The climate is typical very warm, dry, and windy. Whenever it rains it rains for two or three days at a time, without letting up.

Character Pictures

Scott O'Dell

About Scott O'Dell

Mr. Scott O'Dell was born on May 23 in 1898. He was born in Los Angeles were there wasn't any airplanes, freeways, and only the wealth could afford automobiles. Soon the O'Dell family moved to San Pedro, where they lived on Rattlesnake Island across from San Pedro. O'Dell was tall and thin, also a track star at Long Beach Polytechnic High School. O'Dell did something unusal. He went to four differen't colleges. Those colleges were Claremont College in California, The University of Wisconsin, Stanford Unversity, and The University of Rome. O'Dell joined the army to fight in 1918, when he was just 20 years old. He entered the army during World War I. At the end of World War I he was sent home. Then when World War II broke out he was enlisted again, but he didn't go fight. Instead he was stationed at Sheppear Air Force Base, Texas. O'Dell was very interested in film. His first job was Palmer Photoplay Company. While he was there he criticized and read movie scripts. While he was working here he came out with his first book Representative Photoplay Analyzed, which was published in 1924 when he was 26 years old. Then after his first job, he worked at Paramont Pictures in silent movies. He was the set dresser. His last movie job was a silent version of Ben Hur. He was the cameraman. Ben Hur was shot in Italy. When Ben Hur was finished shooting O'Dell had liked Italy so much he stayed there after the shooting. While in Italy, he wrote his first novel Pinfeathers, but it waas never published. Don't try to look for Pinfeathers because O'Dell burn the manuscript. Books that O'Dell wrote include Woman of Spain published in 1934, Hill of the Hawk published in 1947, Man Alone published in 1953, Country of the Sun: Southern Califorina, An Informational Guide published in 1957, The Sea is Red published in 1958, and The Island of the Blue Dolphins. O'Dell died in 1989. O'Dell's ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of La Jolla, California. When the boat was going back toward shore a pod of dolphins came out of the water right along the boat. The dolphins stayed with the boat untill the boat entered San Diego Bay.