O'Dell Scott
"Places I have known, creatures I have loved are in Island of the Blue Dolphins..."--Scott O'Dell, "Newberry Award Acceptance" Speech, Horn Book, August, 1961 Scott O'Dell, an award winning author of more than twenty books, was a naturalist who drew on his own experiences as a boy growing up in a rural environment to write historical fiction for children. Born to railway employee Bennett Mason O'Dell on Terminal Island, May 23, 1898, O'Dell spent his youth roaming the primitive coastal communities of Southern California where his father was stationed. His stories are a collection of detailed information of local geography, plant and wildlife gleaned from a childhood spent in close association with nature:Wherever we went, it was into frontier country, like Los Angeles. There was San Pedro which is a part of Los Angeles. And Rattlesnake Island (Terminal Island), across the bay from San Pedro, where we lived in a house on stilts and the waves came up and washed under us every day and ships went by...(Commire 112)O'Dell spent his days exploring waterways and tide-pools from San Pedro, north to Santa Barbara and his much beloved Channel Islands. His youthful adventures included appropriating Ore
These deeper, colder waters reveal the bittersweet joys of a boy growing up in the wilds of Southern California and a troubled man's attempt to make peace with the more painful memories of choices made that haunted him all of his days. However, on the mainland of Southern California there is a species of dog that does fit her description and experience. A mother gull pushing her grown brood from the nest, watching them plummet a hundred feet into the sea, then flying down to herd them onto their new home, a rock safe from the tide. One experience in particular haunted him as an adult. Karana defines the differences between the size and shape of the noses of both, the presence of webbing, and the absence of it, as well as the differences in the thickness of fur. His observations as a child became her observations. The boys killed it and cut off its legs in order to pull on the tendons and force the claws to contract. Devoting several pages of Karana's narrative to it, O'Dell details the earthquake from beginning to end. Small in size, docile and unafraid of humans, the native Channel Isle Fox does not fit the description of the packs of "wild dogs," either in appearance or temperament that attacked and killed Karana's younger brother (O'Dell 47). An owl, sleeping in a rock crevasse was discovered during one of his forays into the wilderness. One of Karana's most careful descriptions involves the appearance and behaviors of sea otter, also indigenous to the California coastal regions. In Island of the Blue Dolphin O'Dell's resolve became Karana's. Since San Nicholas Island is located only sixty miles west of Los Angeles, the author' decision to include an earthquake, and to provide intimate details of the sights and sounds of the experience are as equally accurate as his other details concerning local ecology. Karana's determination and perseverance are considered to be examples of the finest inner-parts of mankind. " All of these plant forms are indigenous to the Southern California coast and its islands.
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Acceptance Essays
