On Sand Island (Golden Kite Honors (Awards))

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing Story About A Vanished Way of Life
Review: This is a wonderful and evocative book. Sand Island is a real place, where real people used to live, and the author does a marvelous job of presenting the way life was like for a curious young boy growing up on this little island in the middle of Lake Superior.

Rating:
Summary: About a 10 year old boy's hard work and independence
Review: This is based on a true story, a 10-year-old boy whose mother is deceased, living on Sand Island (in Lake Superior), a community of Norwegian's, with his father and with his younger sister. His father is a fisherman and he longs for the day when he can have his own boat. His younger sister tells him he is too young to own his own boat. He decided to make his dream a reality and one step at a time, and does build his own boat. He does not have a full plan at the beginning but takes it one step at a time. He finds male neighbors and friends to help him along the way, by borrowing a tool or bartering his work for their time and labor. I found it odd that he never asked his father for help, a little odd that there was more help from neighbors than his own father, but I assume his father was very busy fishing to support his family! The last step in the process was getting oars and his father did give him some old oars that they had in storage, which Carl had to refinish.

The themes in the book are of independence, hard work, perseverance, and ingenuity. I thought the boys resourcefulness in finding help wonderful. The boy's positive attitude is wonderful. With each step of the boat-building project we see the amount of hard work that he had to put into making it, a wonderful thing to see in a 10 year old.

The book ends first with Carl's peaceful and rewarding solo boat ride then with a party to celebrate the newest boat on the island including music and dancing.

The illustrations are gorgeous, pale paintings that look as if painted atop a canvas laid with sand!

In the author's note at the back of the book, I learned that this tale is set in the early 1900s and is based on a real person named Carl Dahl. In the 1940s sea lampreys came into Lake Superior and killed all the whitefish and trout, essentially killing the fishing industry there. The site of Carl Dahl's home is now being used to house a ranger's cabin for the National Park Service.