For fans of Hatchet and Island of the Blue Dolphins comes Theodore
Taylor's classic bestseller and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner, The
Cay.
Phillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curaçao.
War has always been a game to him, and he's eager to glimpse it
firsthand-until the freighter he and his mother are traveling to the
United States on is torpedoed.
When Phillip comes to, he is on a small raft in the middle of the sea.
Besides Stew Cat, his only companion is an old West Indian, Timothy.
Phillip remembers his mother's warning about black people: "They are
different, and they live differently."
But by the time the castaways arrive on a small island, Phillip's head
injury has made him blind and dependent on Timothy.
"Mr. Taylor has provided an exciting story...The idea that all humanity
would benefit from this special form of color blindness permeates the
whole book...The result is a story with a high ethical purpose but no
sermon."--New York Times Book Review
"A taut tightly compressed story of endurance and revelation...At once
barbed and tender, tense and fragile--as Timothy would say, 'outrageous
good.'"--Kirkus Reviews
* "Fully realized setting...artful, unobtrusive use of dialect...the
representation of a hauntingly deep love, the poignancy of which is
rarely achieved in children's literature."--School Library
Journal, Starred
"Starkly dramatic, believable and compelling."--Saturday Review
"A tense and moving experience in reading."--Publishers Weekly
"Eloquently underscores the intrinsic brotherhood of
man."--Booklist
This is one of the best survival stories since Robinson
Crusoe.--The Washington Star
- A New York Times Best Book of the Year
- A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
- A Horn Book Honor Book
- An American Library Association Notable Book
- A Publishers Weekly Children's Book to Remember
- A Child Study Association's Pick of Children's Books of the Year
- Jane Addams Book Award
- Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
- Commonwealth Club of California: Literature Award
- Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young
People Award
- Woodward School Annual Book Award
- Friends of the Library Award, University of California at Irvine
