The Cay
Phillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curacao. War has always been a game to him and he's eager to witness it first hand - until the freighter he and his mother are travelling on to the USA is torpedoed. Philip wakes to find himself adrift on a small raft... read full description below.
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Full details for this title
| ISBN-13 |
9780140305951 |
| ISBN-10 |
0140305955 |
|
| Stock |
Available |
| Status |
Internationally sourced; usually ships 2-3 weeks |
|
| Publisher |
Penguin |
| Imprint |
Puffin Books |
| Publication Date |
29 March 1973
|
| Publication Country |
 United Kingdom |
|
| Format |
Paperback, New edition |
| Edition |
New edition |
|
| Author(s) |
By Taylor, Theodore |
| Series |
Puffin Books |
| Category |
Fiction (Child/Teen)
|
|
| Interest Age |
9-11 years |
| Reading Age |
2-12 years |
| Library of Congress |
Children's stories |
| NBS Text |
Children's Fiction |
| ONIX Text |
Children/juvenile |
|
| Number of Pages |
112 |
| Dimensions |
Width: 111mm
Height: 181mm
Spine: 6mm |
| Weight |
69g |
|
| Dewey Code |
813.54 |
| Catalogue Code |
Not specified |
Description of this Book
Phillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curacao. War has always been a game to him and he's eager to witness it first hand - until the freighter he and his mother are travelling on to the USA is torpedoed. Philip wakes to find himself adrift on a small raft in the middle of the ocean with an old West Indian man. Together they become marooned on a tiny deserted island. This moving story tells of their struggle to survive and is also a fascinating study of the relationship between a young white American boy influenced by his mother's prejudices, and a black man upon whom Philip's life depends.
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Awards & Reviews
| US Review |
A taut, tightly compressed story of endurance and revelation. When American Philip, eleven, regains consciousness on a raft after his ship is torpedoed (World War II), his only companion is an aged Negro deck hand. He was ugly. His nose was flat and his face was broad; his head was a mass of wiry gray hair. Timothy's heavy West Indian accent, laced with young bahss, is alien and Phillip understands his mother's saying that blacks are different - smelly, superstitious, coarse-mannered. Then Phillip becomes blind and Timothy, who's been tolerating the snotty kid, is in for more affronts. Eventually they reach a tropical island ( Boddam, young bahss ) and Timothy begins Crusoe housekeeping with Phillip as truculent roommate and reluctant helper. As Phillip loses his timidity and starts to explore, he realizes how much Timothy has adapted and arranged things to benefit him - vine ropes for guides, a constant fire for signalling, rigging for fresh water. Almost imperceptibly, he adjusts his stereotype of a black man to the reality of Timothy until the memory of that ugly face is gone, until with no longer grating ingenuousness he asks, Timothy, are you still black? (Better still, Timothy roars with laughter.) And then they face a storm and Timothy, in shielding Phillip, dies. That the boy survives is a measure of Timothy's tremendous foresight and Phillip's admirable reserves. At once barbed and tender, tense and fragile - as Timothy would say, outrageous good. (Kirkus Reviews) |
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Author's Bio
There is no author biography for this title.
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