Odell's Blue Dolphin Island is a historical novel written for children, but it is also full of magic for adults. Since the publication of 1960, more than 6 million copies have been sold in the United States alone. It was rated as one of the "greatest children's literature works since 65,438+0,776" by American Association, and won the two highest honors of the International Children's Literature Award-Newbury Award and Andersen Award.
book review
This novel is written in the first person. We read it as if we had followed the heroine Canalana to Blue Dolphin Island in the Pacific Ocean. Ah, what a beautiful island it is;
Our island is two leagues long and one league wide. If you stand on a hill in the middle of the island, you will feel it like a fish. More precisely, like a dolphin lying on its side, its tail points to the sunrise and its nose points to the sunset. Its fins are reefs and coastal stone walls. \ "(Chapter II)
"At dusk ... the ocean was calm and a little yellow everywhere. I lay there with my back to the island, as if I were exhausted. Seagulls are still quiet and live in their rock nests. \ "(Chapter 27)
There are blue dolphin island swimming, precious sea otters playing, walruses fighting for hegemony and wild dogs fighting. ...
Coming here, we seem to have entered the beautiful fairy tale world, broadened our horizons and enriched our life knowledge.
As we walked, we listened to Kalana telling her touching story.
This romantic adventure story caught our hearts at once. Kalana's fighting spirit left a deep impression on people.
Indians, led by Kalana's father, have been living and working in the Blue Dolphin Island. Unfortunately, the evil Russian colonialists killed Kalana's father and most Indian men in order to plunder marine resources. As a result, the Indian tribe was forced to make a living in the eastern United States by boat. Kalana's family followed, but when the boat left the coast, she found her brother was left on the island, so she resolutely left the boat to meet them and stayed. She and her brother thought that the boat would come to pick them up again, but the boat didn't come again. Her brother was killed by a pack of wild dogs again! Kalana has no home, no relatives and companions around, and nothing but a basket of food. Not only that, Russian robbers may arrive at any time; The wild dog that killed her brother is chasing her again.
"What shall we do? \"
Kalana asked himself. She's worried. She "can't eat much, and there's not a night without nightmares." However, she did not become a difficult captive and a prey of death.
She overcame many difficulties, made weapons for self-defense and hunting, built houses and subdued wild dogs. ...
She is in a hopeless situation everywhere, and it can't be done in one go in three or five days, nor is it three or five years, but it is a long time from youth to middle age. She is still full of optimism and seems to be leisurely. She tries her best to make life better and better. She made a skirt with beautiful cormorant feathers and a pair of earrings with beautiful pebbles to dress herself up. Feeling lonely, she managed to turn tame wild dogs and rescued sea otters into her new friends, adding a lot of fun to her life.
What is particularly commendable is that Kalana has never changed his kind character in the predicament of hunger, cold and death threats for many years. For example, one day, she found a little sea otter killed by Russians, and felt sorry for it, so she took it back and raised it in the pool to help it heal. She knew that the little sea otter would return to the sea, but she insisted on catching her favorite fish for the little sea otter every day. You know, Kalana is not an island resident, let alone a tourist. Death threatens her! No wonder the little otter has feelings for her. When he returned to the sea and met her, he always took the initiative to greet her in his unique language.
Objectively speaking, Blue Dolphin Island also exposed all kinds of atrocities committed by colonists in murder and robbery.
Who destroyed the homes of Indians living and working in peace and contentment on Blue Dolphin Island?
Who ruined the family of the young girl Kalana and almost died on the island herself?
Is an evil colonist.
Unfortunately, the author criticized the Russian colonists, but praised the American colonists. It seems that Russian colonists are sinners of Indians, while American colonists are benefactors of Indians. Obviously, this is contrary to historical facts.
As we all know, the earliest inhabitants of America were Indians. However, foreign colonists, especially the ruling class in the United States, branded Indians as "barbarians" and "animals slightly stronger than wolves", brutally occupied their land and brutally destroyed them. American President Jackson, who was contemporary with Kalana, the hero of Blue Dolphin Island, once put forward a cruel slogan: Indians "surrender or die"! The Indians in Aperture in the southwestern United States were brutally suppressed because of the struggle to defend the park. The surviving men and 329 women and children were all put into prison, and one level was 28 years! In this way, there are more than one million Indians in the country, leaving only 25,000 Indians!
This is the historical fact of American colonists and the "benefactor" of Indians. This fact cannot be distorted.
Nevertheless, it is still commendable for the author to write a biography of this Indian girl who is regarded as a "barbarian" with emotional brushstrokes and to shape her into a perfect artistic image.