Scott O'Dell - (1898–1989)

His Life:

Odell Scott (Scott O'Dell) grew up in a California that was still wild and natural. No freeways, no asphalt, no hundred-story buildings. People got around by walking, taking a trolley or train, or riding horseback. His family lived in a house on stilts that was so much a part of the landscape that the waves at high tide splashed against its supports. He loved the outdoors and decided to become a writer as a youngster after he learned that he was related to the classic British historical novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott.

The author was quoted as saying that Los Angeles "was a frontier town when I was born there around the turn of the (twentieth) century. It had more horses than automobiles, more jack rabbits than people. The very first sound I remember was a wildcat scratching on the roof as I lay in bed."

As an adult he had several different jobs before he became a writer. He was a cameraman for Hollywood and even worked on the film Ben Hur. He served in the Air Force during World War II, and at one time he was even a rancher. Scott O’Dell began writing both nonfiction and fiction books for adults and articles in 1934. During the 1940s and 1950s he worked as a book columnist for the Los Angeles Mirror and as a book editor for the Los Angeles Daily News. O'Dell was born Odell Scott--his name was changed after it was transposed in an early article byline. In the late 1950s he began writing children’s books.

Mr. O'Dell went on to write more than 25 children's books, several with the help of his wife, Elizabeth Hall. Ms. Hall was a public librarian for some years. He and his wife met while he was speaking to students at a school in her small California town. "The attraction was instant and mutual." He wrote to encourage young people to realize that history had a very real connection to their lives. His heroes and heroines are smart and plucky, learning to take what life throws at them and work for their own independence.

Scott O'Dell lived to a great age, at last dying of cancer in 1989. His legacy lives on in the millions of readers whom his writings have touched. The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction encourages children's and young adult authors to try their hands at conveying the lessons of the past to young people.

His Books:

Scott O'Dell won the Newbery Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1961, and in 1976 the Children's Literature Association named this riveting story one of the 10 best American children's books of the past 200 years. O'Dell was inspired by the real-life story of a 12-year-old American Indian girl, Karana. The author based his book on the life of this remarkable young woman who, during the evacuation of Ghalas-at (an island off the coast of California), jumped ship to stay with her young brother who had been abandoned on the island. He died shortly thereafter, and Karana fended for herself on the island for 18 years.

O'Dell tells the miraculous story of how Karana forages on land and in the ocean, clothes herself (in a green-cormorant skirt and an otter cape on special occasions), and secures shelter. Perhaps even more startlingly, she finds strength and serenity living alone on the island.

Writing from his prison cell, young Esteban de Sandoval describes his adventures as a mapmaker with Coronado in the New World of the 16th century. With a band of young Spaniards, he struck out in search of the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola. Their guide on this dangerous journey was a young Indian girl, and only she escapes the corrupting effects of greed. While awaiting trial for murder and withholding from the king the obligatory fifth of the gold found in Cibola, Esteban, a seventeen-year-old cartographer, recalls his adventures with a band of conquistadors.

From the Book:
"Old Salazar held the pearl to the light and tumed it around and around. He gave it to his son, who had found the pearl in the underwater cave of the lagoon. "You have in your hand the Pearl of the Universe, the Paragon of Pearls, the Great Pearl of Heaven!" he said.

When the pearl merchants wouldn't meet his price, Blas Salazar presented the fabulous gem to the Madonna of the church of La Paz. "The House of Salazar shall be favored in heaven, now and forever," he proudly proclaimed and firmly believed. But there were others who believed a curse had surely been brought down upon Salazar and Son and their fleet, for the Manat Diablo, monster devilfish, would reclaim his treasure. And it was young Ramon who would have to undo the evil he had begun.

When young Nathan sails from Nantucket with his older brothers Caleb and Jeremy, they hope to discover the facts behind the sinking of the Amy Foster. Then Jeremy dies mysteriously, and Nathan discovers a curious object floating in the waters of Magdalena Bay. As the dramatic events unfold, he realizes that Caleb suffers from some kind of madness, believing that he is Captain Ahab, straight out of Moby Dick.
"No summary can do justice to a brooding, twilit quality which makes The Dark Canoe an adventure more of the mind than of the sea ... Figures and events from Moby Dick are given eerie, shadowy counterparts. ... So quietly, so persuasively, is this accomplished that when Ishmael's ocean-going coffin drifts out of Melville's seas in O'Dell's, it carries no shock for either Nathan or the reader. And when the Alert finally stands out to sea, we do not know whether she is commanded by Caleb Clegg bound homeward for Nantucket, or by Captain Ahab sailing once more in vengeful pursuit of the White Whale." From Book World.

"The Spanish Slavers were an ever-present threat to the Navaho way of life. One lovely spring day, fourteen-year-old Bright Morning and her friend Running Bird took their sheep to pasture. The sky was clear blue against the red buttes of the Canyon de Chelly, and the fields and orchards of the Navahos promised a rich harvest. Bright Morning was happy as she gazed across the beautiful valley that was the home of her tribe. She turned when Black Dog barked, and it was then that she saw the Spanish slavers riding straight toward her."

The Navajo tribe's forced march from their homeland to Fort Sumner by white soldiers and settlers is dramatically and courageously told by young Bright Morning. This beautifully written story of a young Navajo girl captured by Spanish slavers is a Newbery Honor Award Book and a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year.

What could make a young boy jump into a ring and challenge a fighting bull? How could a boy no more than sixteen stand there calmly and face death? Manuel, the "child of fire," is a boy whose whole world prompts him to take risks, time and time again. He lives just north of the Mexican border, the leader of a teenage Chicano gang that vies with another gang for power. The book is filled with friendly competitions and bitter struggles. It is filled with robust, hearty living and with some dying. As the rival gangs go their different ways, Parole Officer Delaney watches and helps where he can.

Tom Barton and his Uncle Jack live on the edge of danger, smuggling goods under the very nose of the king's searchers. Shrewd, brave, desperate at times, they make run after run across the Channel , braving rough seas, heavy winds, and a growing restlessness among their countrymen. All Europe is aflame with the writing and preaching of Martin Luther.

Tom and his uncle come into contact with another man, William Tyndale, whose work and prayer is to put an English Bible into the hands of the common people. While Uncle Jack sees only the profit in a religious Reformation, it is Tom who sees in Tyndale's work the dawning of a new age and a new way of life for himself and England.

William Tyndale was the hawk that dare not hunt by day. Hunted, hated by many, a fugitive in several countries, this humble man's pen changed the course of history.

Zia, the sequel to Island of the Blue Dolphins, tells the story of Karana's 14-year-old niece, who grows up in California with the knowledge that her aunt is alone on the island. Zia and her brother are determined to find Karana. They meet with disappointment when they unsuccessfully attempt to make the 60-mile trip to the island in a small boat. Finally, a ship captain takes one of Mission Santa Barbara's padres with him to rescue Karana. While Karana is happy to be rescued, she never is able to adjust to life at the mission.

It was a quiet evening in a smoke-filled pub in Liverpool. Jim Lynne was idly playing darts with some of his fellow apprentices at Laird Brothers' Shipyard when his brother Ted, hailed him over to his table and started talking in a low, conspiratorial tone. It was from his brother, no favorite of Jim's, that the boy learned that the ship he'd been working on at Laird's, the 290, was being built for the Confederate navy. This was a confidence that was to have a profound influence on Jim's life. For it was because of his brother's words that Jim was there when teh 290 was christened the "Alabama", and because of Ted, too, that he made the far-reaching decision to ship aboard what was to become one of the most famous vessels of the American Civil War.

Raised to take the place of her dead brother, Carlota de Zubaran can do anything that Carlos could have done. She races her stallion through the California lowlands, dives into shark-infested waters searching for gold, and fights in the battles that rage between the Mexicans and the Americans. At sixteen , she is fearless--and that pleases her father very much.

Yet while Carlota throughly enjoys her freedom, she wants to be more than her father's "son." She wants to be herself, brave and courageous but free to show feelings of tenderness and compassion as well. Her father thinks such feelings are shameful, so Carlota must defy him. That will be the most difficult battle of all.

As Maya villages throughout Central America submit to Spanish might, a young Jesuit missionary struggles with his own ambition -- and with his growing suspicion that he, too, is a willing oppressor. O'Dell exhibits a quiet rage at racial injustice, as well as his trademark unwillingness to coddle. The result is this tough, compelling young-adult book.

Fifteen-year-old Sarah lives on a little Long Island farm at the outbreak of the War for Independence. Her brother defies his Tory father and leaves to join the patriot army. Soon her father dies for his Tory sentiments. Finding herself a homeless orphan, Sarah goes to the crowded young city of New York. There she finds herself accused by the British of a crime she did not commit. Fleeing for her life, Sarah finds a cave in the wood about 50 miles north of the city. The cave becomes her wilderness refuge. Drawing on strengths and skills she had not known she possessed, she begins to shape a new life.

The young seminarian, Julian Escobar, finds himself trapped in the role of the legendary Mayan god Kukulcan, a captive of his own power and of his duties as lord of a great city. His only ally, the sly dwarf Cantu, cares only for the gold that can be plundered from the Mayan temples. Even amid the barbaric splendor of his own court, Julian fears the treachery of the high priest. Julian's travels take him to the palace of Aztec emperor Moctezuma, and before long he is caught up in the tragic encounter of Moctezuma and Hernan Cortes.

Sixteen-year-old Lucinda de Cabrillo y Benivides lives a sheltered life on Isla del Oro, an island just off the coast of California. Determined to keep his daughter safe from the "barbarism" of the mainland, Lucinda's father has cut off all contact with the outside world. However, when an unannounced visitor comes to the island Lucinda learns a horrifying truth about her father and her life.

Beautiful, intelligent, and an heiress to wealth beyond imagining, Lucinda knows that the world judges her to be the most fortunate of young women. But in this sequel to The Spanish Smile, Lucinda is afraid. She is now the ruler of the fabled Isla del Oro and free from the cruel power of her mad father. Yet Lucinda, although surrounded by admirers and servants, senses that she is as much a captive in the great stone castle as she had been while her father lived. When her fiance, a Spanish nobleman, comes to the castle, bringing his imperious mother, Lucinda hopes that she has found someone who might help her escape from her gilded prison. But instead of escape, she finds her sense of peril deepening. Now her life--and her fiance's life as well--are threatened by mysterious "accidents."

Volume III of The Seven Serpents Trilogy
The role of Kukulcan, legendary god of the Maya, was a daring imposition for Julian Escobar, the young Spanish seminarian. And it led him into a life of splendor and peril. Even the fabled powers of Kukulcan could not save him when the armies of the conquistadores threatened his City of the Seven Serpents. Driven from his realm, Julian became a wanderer, haunted by the terror he had seen and by the memory of the Spanish bishop whose ring he wore. He becomes a trader of pearls, then a merchant of feathered cloaks. But Hernan Cortes has put a price on Julian's head and he flees to Panama. There he casts his lot with Pizarro, as hungry for gold as any conquistador. His travels with Pizarro's army take him to the great city of Macchu Picchu, high in the Andes. There he sees the magnificence of the Incan empire and witnesses its swift and tragic fall.

For years, Alexandra Papadimitrios' family have been sponge fishers in the Florida village of Tarpon Springs. Then tragedy strikes, and Alexandra finds herself forced out of her traditional role as a Greek daughter and into a new and perilous life. Under the guidance of her grandfather Stefanos, in his day a legendary fisherman, she must learn the craft of the sponge diver. It is dangerous and exciting work, and Alexandra finds her confidence and pride growing as the days at sea pass. Not all her challenges lurk under water. On the horizon there is the handsome Spyros Stavaronas. Alexandra is flattered and puzzled by his attention. And back on shore is the mysterious George Kanarsis, always ready to pay the highest price for the sponges she and her grandfather bring into port. Then Alexandra makes a startling discovery, one that compels her to act in a way she had never dreamed possible.

Through the eyes of Ricca di Montanaro, a willful young woman madly in love with the pleasure-seeking Francis Bernadone, we watch his transformation from a playboy into the famous Saint Francis of Assissi. With Ricca, we follow Francis to the besieged city of Damietta on the Nile, where he goes to seek an end to the war between Moslems and Christians. She is witness to his encounter with the all-powerful sultan of Egypt and Syria. She lives through the destruction of Damietta--an experience that blinds Francis and awakens Ricca to a far deeper sense of her love for the saint and indeed for the world around her.

No woman in all of our history has captured the imagination like the young Shoshone girl Sacagawea, who served as in interpreter and often as a guide for Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition into our uncharted West. She exists in the journals and narratives of that legendary search as a shadow, valued for her knowledge of the languages, the country, and the customs of her people, but always as a shadow and a stranger. In this novel, Sacagawea comes to life and gives us an exciting new perspective on this heroine of an American saga. Her story begins on an early evening in late summer when she was captured by the Minnetarees and taken away from her family and everything she knew. From that moment on, her life changes dramatically. Her fate leads her to Lewis and Clark, but especially to Captain Clark, a man she begins to love--a dangerous emotion on the perilous journey to the Pacific Ocean.

On a bright May day in 1609, the Sea Venture set sail from Plymouth, England, bound for the new settlement at Jamestown, full of supplies and colonists. Serena Lynn joins the settlers so she may be near the man she loves, who is embroiled in Court disputes and must ship out for the New World. But the expedition was to prove more adventurous than anything Serena could have imagined. Before it was over, she would have survived a perilous shipwreck, become embroiled in the conflicts of the settlers, and come to see handsome young Anthony in a new light. When the colonists finally reach the shores of Virginia, they find Jamestown in ruins and the settlers starving. Serena goes with a party sent to plead with Pocahontas, the Indian princess who saved the settlement once before. As the colonists recover, Serena finds herself playing a surprising and important part in the young colony's fate.

Her name was Bright Dawn, a teenage Eskimo girl. He was Black Star, part husky but mostly wolf, with ice-blue eyes. Together, they were a team--about to begin the famous Iditarod dogsled race through the cold wilds of Alaska. Bright Dawn couldn't believe it when her father asked her to take his place in the race. She didn't think she could do it; the trail was one thousand miles long, with unforeseen hazards along the entire route. Bright Dawn knew that Black Star would lead her to the finish line. But neither she nor her dog expected a cold, blinding white-out, a belligerent bull moose, ice that could crack and splinter at any time, and all the other dangers they encountered. Soon Bright Dawn was depending on Black Star not only for the race, but for her life as well.

Snatched from her home in Africa, 16-year-old Raisha and the young chief she is to marry find themselves transported on a plague-ridden slave ship and sold to Danish planters on the island of St. John. Raisha becomes a sheltered house servant, but Konje soon joins the runaways holding out on a remote island promontory. The planters react harshly, and the runaways know they face torture, maiming, or even death. In this compelling account of the great slave rebellion of 1733, Raisha contrives to help the man she loves and eventually runs away to join him. In a dramatic climax to this powerful and tragic story, the slaves have only one awful choice.

In the spring of 1877, Sound of Running Feet sees white people panning gold in the little creek that feeds the Wallowa River. When she brings word to her father, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, he tells her that more are on the way. "We are few and they are many. They will devour us." So begins this account of the tragic defeat of the Nez Perce. Desperately trying to evade the American soldiers who have been sent to force them onto a reservation, the Nez Perce flee toward Canada. For months they stand off attacks along the way, fighting with reckless courage and winning every battle but the last one. Through the eyes of the chief's daughter, a brave and independent young girl, the reader shares every twist in this class tale of cruelty, heroism, and betrayal.

When killer whales invade Glacier Strait, the dolphins' peaceful home becomes a place of terror. With too many females expecting young and too few large males to guard them, Coral's herd is in serious danger. Reluctantly, Coral's father and mother send her in search of her older brother Silver and safer waters. The journey is perilous, as Coral confronts hungry sharks, menacing killer whales, and hazardous fishing nets. Inevitably, she encounters the greatest danger of them all--the finless creatures with long bony tentacles who live inside boats.