Thumbs up for Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. Young adult.
I read this as a kid and loved it; I’ve always liked tales of survival in the wild with minimal equipment. It’s been sitting on my shelf since then, awaiting a re-read. I have moved on a bit over the last fifteen-odd years, but it’s still an excellent tale – all the more interesting as it’s inspired by a true report of a young woman who survived eighteen years alone on an island. You would not go wrong making a back-to-back study of this, Hatchet, and The Black Stallion.
Dolphins are animals of good omen. It made me happy to have them swimming around the canoe, and though my hands had begun to bleed from the chafing of the paddle, just watching them made me forget the pain. I was very lonely before they appeared, but now I felt that I had friends with me and did not feel the same.
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