Island of the Blue Dolphins

For authors and artists week, I’d like to talk about the most impressive author I ever worked with, Scott O’Dell. Scott was in his mid seventies and I was in my late twenties when we first met. A tall man, large in body, spirit, and charisma, he could tell stories like no one I had ever met. Probably even more important to me, Scott genuinely paid attention to and appreciated junior publishing staff members. When I traveled to Italy, he outlined the “do not miss” spots like Fiesole. Whatever you did for him, he thanked you and encouraged you personally.

By that point he had become one of America’s most accomplished writers for children. In his home Scott displayed on a mantle the treasures he’d gathered—the Newbery Medal, the Hans Christian Anderson Medal, and the Regina Medal. These were all, by the way, heavy and impressive objects. As someone who came late in his life to writing for children, perhaps he valued his profession more than he would have if it had come easier.

Born in Los Angeles in 1898, Scott attended a number of colleges and eventually worked in the motion picture industry. He was on set for the first filming of Ben Hur. Eventually he became the book review editor for the Lost Angeles Daily News and wrote some books for adults. But a true story that he had encountered always haunted him, about a young Native American who spent eighteen years alone on an island off the California coast. There was no record of how she spoke, and because Scott wanted to give this character, Karana, great dignity, he wrote in iambic pentameter, the language of Shakespeare. He had no idea who might want to read this story—and entrusted a copy to his friend Hardwick Mosley, West Coast sales representative for Houghton Mifflin. Houghton thought Island of the Blue Dolphins a children’s story, published it in 1960, and Scott won the Newbery Award for his first book.

Married to children’s librarian Elizabeth O’Dell, who would be his lifelong supporter and first-reader for his books, Scott loved no group of people more than librarians—they read his books, they could tell him what children said, and they appreciated his stories. Although Island of the Blue Dolphins was published when Scott was in his sixties, he lived and wrote for another thirty years and crafted other superb novels: Zia; Black Star, Bright Dawn; The King’s Fifth; The Black Pearl. Always personally generous with the money from his books, Scott set up the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction to help other authors receive recognition for their efforts.

How I wish I could have dinner with Scott and Elizabeth again. No one was ever kinder to me, a young woman trying to find her way in the publishing profession. But I do pick up Island of the Blue Dolphins from time to time—just to hear the sound of his eloquent storytelling voice. Please join me in doing so today.

Here’s a passage from Island of the Blue Dolphins: