Wednesday, July 4, 2007

courage-shumin

Describes the twelve year Karana’s courage and will to survive alone on her small island braving the fierce dogs and the wild weather. She lives out her solitary life on this island for many years hoping that a ship will eventually come and take her to where her family and village have moved.
Taken from :
http://dimdima.com/bookbuzz/show_books.asp?q_bid=80&q_title=Island%20of%20the%20Blue%20Dolphins

She gathers food, builds shelter, and makes tools to survive. In order to take revenge against the wild dogs that killed her brother, Karana must make weapons, something that had been forbidden to the women of the tribe. After many moons and suns, she realizes that her people won't be coming back for her. As the years go by, Karana learns to respect all of the animals of the island, and eventually tames Rontu, the dog who had killed her brother.

Taken from :http://www.literatureplace.com/bookfolios/bookfolio.asp?BookfolioID=138

Things would have gone differently if only Karana's young brother, Ramo, had not forgotten his fishing spear and gone back to fetch it. The rest of the tribe, including Karana, board the ship in bad weather and rising seas. In an astonishing act of bravery, when Karana looks back to the cliff to see Ramo left behind, she jumps overboard and swims back to him.She plucked up her courage to swim back to him by not knowing that it may be dangerous for her. Thus, there are two left behind when the ship sails.They carried on their life .
Taken from:http://www.readingmatters.co.uk/book.php?id=61

SUMMARY


Karana, an Indian girl, lives happily with her people on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. It is an island in the Pacific that gets its name from its beautiful shape — from above it looks like a dolphin lying on its side, "with its tail pointing toward sunrise," sunning itself in the sea. Around it blue dolphins swim, otters play, and sea elephants and sea birds thrive. Karana's people live in harmony among the other animals on and around the island as they have for generations. Her father is the chief of the village. And then one day a boat comes captained by a Russian man, who "looked at the little harbor as though it already belonged to him." The captain and his crew wish to hunt sea otter on their own terms. Their disregard for the ways of the Indians leads to bloody consequences, and Karana's family is destroyed, and eventually with the arrival of more white men, the entire community disappears from the island, save Karana.
For years she lives on the island alone, using the skills of her people to survive. For the first time, she modifies the skills only the men of her village had mastered. She makes a fence from the ribs of a whale. She builds a house. Eventually she becomes comfortable alone. She befriends one of the wild dogs, and the blue dolphins still give her strength. But she will not be alone for much longer.
Author O'Dell has based Karana's spare, poetic narrative on the events that took place on a real island off the coast of California first settled by Indians in about 2000 B.C. And there actually was a Karana, an Indian girl who lived Robinson Crusoe style on the island for 18 years. Winner of a Newbery Medal, O'Dell's novel can be used not only to augment a unit on Native American history, but to compel even the most reluctant reader.

Other website about Island of the blue dolphin : http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dolphins/themes.html
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/book.jsp?id=2353

0 comments: