O'Dell, Scott

Discusses the writing, characters, plot, and themes of this 1961 Newbery Award-winning book. Includes discussion questions and activities.

Left alone on a beautiful but isolated island off the coast of California, a young Indian girl spends eighteen years, not only merely surviving through her enormous courage and self-reliance, but also finding a measure of happiness in her solitary life.

Relates the experiences of a young Senegalese girl brought as a slave to the Danish owned Caribbean island of St. John during the slave revolt of 1733-1734.

In the late nineteenth century, a young Nez Perce girl relates how her people were driven off their land by the U.S. Army and forced to retreat north until their eventual surrender.

A shipyard apprentice finds high adventure aboard the "S.S. Alabama," a Confederate ship which sails the Atlantic destroying Union vessels.

A young Indian girl, Zia, caught between the traditional world of her mother and the present world of the Mission, is helped by her aunt Karana whose story was told in the "Island of the Blue Dolphins.".

Bright Dawn must face the challenge of the Iditarod dog sled race alone when her father is injured.

The adventures of a sixteen-year-old shipyard apprentice boy serving aboard the Confederate warship Alabama, one of the most famous ships of the American Civil War.

An Indian girl discovers strength and serenity as she survives alone for eighteen years on an island off the California coast.