SOURCE CITATION
"Scott O'dell." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
"Scott O'Dell is one of two or three major American novelists of the past two decades who has written historical fiction for children," wrote Malcolm Usrey in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. "His rank as one of the foremost historical novelists is attested to by the number of prestigious awards he has won, by the thousands and thousands of young readers he has claimed, . . . and by the critical acclaim he has received for several of his books." O'Dell, who remains best known for his first young adult novel, Island of the Blue Dolphins, was convinced throughout his writing career that the historical format could make readers aware of timeless truths such as the possibility for endurance, resourcefulness, and moral courage in the face of inhumanity.
"Washington Post Book World contributor Leon Garfield called O'Dell "a much-honored author, a real general of children's literature who comes with as many medals as a prize-winning Swiss chocolate." Indeed, O'Dell won the Newbery Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins and the coveted Hans Christian Andersen award of merit for lifetime achievement. The author was praised especially for his works on the clash between Native American and colonial cultures, but he ranged freely for themes and settings and produced novels about St. Francis of Assisi, Pocahontas, rival gangs in a large California city, and a teenaged sponge diver in Florida, to name a few.
"O'Dell once told Peter Roop of Language Arts Magazine: "History has a very valid connection with what we are now. Many of my books are set in the past but the problems of isolation, moral decisions, greed, need for love and affection are problems of today as well. . . . I do want to teach through books. Not heavy handedly but to provide a moral backdrop for readers to make their own decisions. After all, I come from a line of teachers and circuit riders going back two hundred years."
"O'Dell was born Odell Scott--his name was changed after it was transposed in an early article byline--and raised in California. His father worked for the Union Pacific Railroad, so the family moved often but always stayed within the state. At the time of O'Dell's youth, California was still largely rural, even in areas that would later be swarming with people. The author was quoted in a Houghton publicity packet 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. . . . That is why, I suppose, the feel of the frontier and the sound of the sea are in my books."
"As a youngster, O'Dell ranged through the California sagebrush country with his friends. His memories from that period would give him great pain later: he sometimes killed the local wildlife for sport. When he became a writer, O'Dell took care to provide his characters with a reverence for wild animals. In a piece for Psychology Today, O'Dell wrote that Island of the Blue Dolphins "began in anger, anger at the hunters who invade the mountains where I live and who slaughter everything that creeps or walks or flies. This anger also was directed at myself, at the young man of many years ago, who thoughtlessly committed the same crimes against nature."
"Prior to 1934 O'Dell held numerous jobs within the moving-picture industry. He taught a mail-order course in photoplay writing, worked as a technical director at Paramount Studios, and even served as a Technicolor cameraman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1934 he published his first novel, Woman of Spain: A Story of Old California, and thereafter he was engaged primarily in writing. From 1947 until 1955 he was book review editor for the Los Angeles Daily News, and he continued to release book-length works for adults. His first novel for teens, Island of the Blue Dolphins, appeared in 1960.
"In the now-classic story, an Indian girl named Karana is stranded on an island off the California coast. She lives in total isolation after a pack of wild dogs kill her brother. For eighteen years Karana struggles to survive in her lonely home. Gradually she comes to respect and even tame some of the wild animals on the island, especially Rontu, the dog who killed her brother. Washington Post Book World reviewer Joyce Milton called the resourceful Karana "a one-in-a-million child protagonist--a loner free to work her destiny totally without interference from adults." The work is not romantic, however. Karana faces difficulties at every turn, including an earthquake and a tidal wave.
""Island of the Blue Dolphins has few equals in children's literature," wrote Usrey. "The novel attests to the skills and talents of O'Dell as a writer of historical fiction. He has woven a suspenseful tale around one of the most appealing of all subjects, survival of a man or woman against the odds of nature in an extremely primitive environment. . . . But the book is more than one of survival; it is the story of great courage, endurance, perseverance, ingenuity, and, perhaps most important of all, it is a story of a woman's surviving great loneliness and an even greater sense of isolation. It is Karana's loneliness and isolation that give the book one of its most powerful and universal themes, that all people need to be with others, to love and to be loved." The critic concluded, "Island of the Blue Dolphins is surely O'Dell's masterpiece and one of a half dozen or so great historical novels for children by an American writer in the past two or three decades."
"O'Dell wrote a number of other novels about the clash between Native Americans and Spanish or English conquerors. The King's Fifth, also a Newbery Honor Book, tells of a young mapmaker who becomes stricken with a lust for gold in the American Southwest during the 1540s. Sing down the Moon describes the enslavement and forced migration of the Navajo people through the eyes of a young Navajo woman, and Zia explores the fate of Karana's tribe as they face exploitation by ruthless Spanish colonists. Usrey noted that O'Dell's works reflect "a fairly recent trend in fiction for children; that is not to slight or bend the truth in favor of the European conquerors."
"This theme is explored in depth in O'Dell's trilogy about the Spanish conquistadors. The books, The Captive, The Feathered Serpent, and The Amethyst Ring, recount Spain's bloody victories over the Aztec and Inca empires through the eyes of a teenaged hero, Julian Escobar. Tempted to his own forms of corruption and exploitation, Escobar eventually spurns the conquistador path and returns to Spain to join a penitent monastery. In a review for the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Zena Sutherland called the trilogy "an exciting adventure story . . . notable for its structure and characterization as well as for the research that colors but does not clog the narrative."
"Most of O'Dell's novels were based on historical events, but a few were set in the present, with present-day themes. Child of Fire deals with gang wars between Hispanic teenagers. Alexandra tells the story of a young diver who discovers cocaine hidden in the sponges she harvests from the sea. Kathleen, Please Come Home offers a diary-form exploration of teenaged drug abuse among runaways. In a review of the latter work for the World of Children's Books, Sally Rumbaugh wrote: "Kathleen, Please Come Home is the story of change, an honest rendition of the struggle and hardships involved in the growth from innocence to maturity. On this level, the novel is archetypal, deeply moving and profound."
"O'Dell wrote novels virtually until the moment of his death in 1989, and the power of his writing skills never diminished. Three of his best-known later works dealt with women from American history. Sarah Bishop explores the tragedies of the Revolutionary War through the experiences of one immigrant to Long Island. Streams to the River, River to the Sea: A Novel of Sacagawea reveals the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806 through the eyes of their Native American guide, Sacagawea, and The Serpent Never Sleeps highlights the life of Pocahontas in colonial Virginia. Horn Book contributor Mary M. Burns maintained that in his writings, O'Dell showed "a particular empathy for and interest in those who are caught between two cultures and who, at times, are torn between conflicting loyalties." My Name Is Not Angelica, the last book written by O'Dell before his death, realistically portrays the horrors of slavery. In a review for Publishers Weekly, the commentator described the story as "ultimately life-affirming, a moving tribute to the dignity of the human spirit" and called O'Dell "a grand master of historical fiction." The manuscript for Thunder Rolling in the Mountains was completed by O'Dell's wife, Elizabeth Hall, and published posthumously; it describes the final stand and surrender of the Nez Perce people in the late 1800s. Even this collaborative writing venture was so effective that Jane Marino, writing for School Library Journal, called the book "an admirable final addition to O'Dell's legacy of powerful novels."
"Critics have cited O'Dell's books for their strong moral stand on right and wrong, for their concern for the environment and wildlife, and for their sensitive treatment of the high and low points of human nature. O'Dell once told Horn Book: "For children, who believe that nothing much has happened before they appeared and that little of the past they do perceive has any possible bearing on their lives, the historical novel can be an entertaining corrective, a signpost between the fixed, always relevant, past and the changing present."
"According to Sally Anne M. Thompson in Catholic Library World, no writer understood better than O'Dell how to weave present-day dilemmas into historical circumstances. "O'Dell, with rare talent, (was) able to accurately depict characters through revealing speech and incident," wrote Thompson. "He (did) not tell his reader how life is, or how people are capable of behaving, he merely (created) the situations that force his characters to be themselves. . . . O'Dell stories entertain the reader, hold his attention and make him care about the dilemmas of the characters. The reader can vicariously experience the defeats and victories of each character. Perhaps this is because he (wrote) about situations pertinent to the human condition; the constant battle between the good and evil obvious even to the pre-adolescent reader. O'Dell (was) capable of subtly and skillfully weaving this message between the written lines of his stories, much as the Navajo weaves her rug, thread by thread, to form a complete and beautiful expression of herself."
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born Odell Gabriel Scott, May 23, 1898, in Los Angeles, CA; died of prostate cancer, October 15, 1989, in Mount Kisco, NY; son of Bennett Mason (an official of the Union Pacific Railroad) and May Elizabeth (Gabriel) Scott; married Jane Rattenbury (marriage ended); married Elizabeth Hall; children: Susan Andersen, David Mason. Education: Attended Occidental College, 1919, University of Wisconsin, 1920, Stanford University, 1920-21, and University of Rome, 1925. Memberships: Authors Guild.
CAREER
Writer, 1934-89. Formerly worked as a technical director for Paramount and as a cameraman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Also grew citrus fruit and taught a mail-order course in photoplay writing. Military service: U.S. Air Force, 1942-43.
