{"id":1572,"date":"2020-06-15T17:51:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T17:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/?p=1572"},"modified":"2025-09-21T18:23:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T22:23:29","slug":"sara-l-schwebel-ed-and-scott-odell-island-of-the-blue-dolphins-the-complete-readers-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/2020\/06\/15\/sara-l-schwebel-ed-and-scott-odell-island-of-the-blue-dolphins-the-complete-readers-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Sara L. Schwebel (ed.) and Scott O\u2019Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Readers Edition<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sara L. Schwebel (ed.) and Scott O\u2019Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Readers Edition<\/em><\/h1>\n\n
\n
\n
Suzan Alteri<\/a><\/div>\n\n
in <\/span>Book review<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"Cover<\/a><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Sara L. Schwebel (Ed.) and Scott O\u2019Dell. Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Readers Edition. <\/em>Oakland, CA, University of California Press, 2016. 256 p. 9780520289376. US$29.95, \u00a324.00. (Hardcover and eBook).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\nsurprising that one of the most important children\u2019s books of the twentieth\ncentury has only recently started receiving the critical attention it deserves.\nSara L. Schwebel\u2019s excellent Complete\nReaders Edition<\/em> offers a significant contribution to a growing body of book\nhistories about classic children\u2019s literature texts and their impacts on\ngenerations of readers. Used by countless American K-12 schools and public\nlibraries from the 1960s onward, O\u2019Dell\u2019s historical fiction robinsonade about\nthe real-life Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, Juana Maria, has been seen as a\ncritical multicultural, feminist young adult text despite some very real concerns\nabout historical accuracy, vanishing Indian tropes, and racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmain protagonist of the book is a young girl, Karana, who is left alone on one\nof the Channel Islands (San Nicolas Island) after her tribe decides to leave\nfor mainland California. The book covers a wide range of important historical\nissues, including indigenous contact with Europeans, isolation, destruction of\nthe environment, and survival, along with a young girl embracing what at that\ntime were traditional male tasks of hunting, making weapons, and canoeing.\nPublished as a children\u2019s novel in 1960, Island<\/em>\nwent on to win the Newbery Medal and has surpassed sales of any other Newbery\nwinning title and all other children\u2019s historical novels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schwebel\u2019s lengthy introduction to the Complete Readers Edition<\/em> sets the stage for a contemporary and detailed reading of Island<\/em> while also providing readers with the background behind this pivotal book, including how the Lone Woman story was disseminated since the nineteenth century, how O\u2019Dell came to write the book, and what sources he used. Most importantly for SHARPists, the introduction details both the writing and editing of Island<\/em> as well as its initial reception in popular culture. While telling the history of how Island of the Blue Dolphins<\/em> came to be, Schwebel raises interesting critical questions such as how settler colonialism and stereotypes of Native Americans influenced O\u2019Dell\u2019s text and what it means for a book to be \u201cdoubly historical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\naddition, the Complete Readers Edition<\/em>\nalso reprints O\u2019Dell\u2019s text in-full with annotations that cover the history of\nthe Lone Woman story, linguistics, facts about the indigenous peoples of the\nChannel Islands, and geography, among other topics. Schwebel also has included\ntwo excised chapters never published and an additional two scholarly essays\nthat look at the archeology of both the Lone Woman story and Island of the Blue Dolphins<\/em> and another\nthat situates Island <\/em>within legal\nframeworks of land rights, tribal recognition, and repatriation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\nfocusing on the interdisciplinary aspects to the writing, publishing, and reception\nof Island of the Blue Dolphins<\/em>,\nSchwebel makes a noteworthy addition to the fields of book history and\nchildren\u2019s literature, providing readers with the historical context behind not\nonly the novel but also the problems associated with the telling of Native\nAmerican culture and history in American popular culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suzan\nAlteri, University of Florida<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s surprising that one of the most important children\u2019s books of the twentieth century has only recently started receiving the critical attention it deserves. Sara L. Schwebel\u2019s excellent Complete Readers Edition offers a significant contribution to a growing body of book histories about classic children\u2019s literature texts and their impacts on generations of readers. Used by countless American K-12 schools and public libraries from the 1960s onward, O\u2019Dell\u2019s historical fiction robinsonade about the real-life Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, Juana Maria, has been seen as a critical multicultural, feminist young adult text despite some very real concerns about historical accuracy, vanishing Indian tropes, and racism. \u261b \u261e<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"wp-custom-template-post-template-reviews","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1888],"tags":[1897,1913,1942],"class_list":["post-1572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-20th-century","tag-children-ya","tag-north-america"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5694,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions\/5694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}