Cay+reflection

November 14, 2007

The book, __The Cay,__ was written by Theodore Taylor. The genre is Survival fiction. The story takes place near the islands of Curacao. There is a war going on and the mother and Phillip want to go back to Virginia, but on the way Phillip and his mom get separated when there boat gets torpedoed and they get separated. Then Phillip is on a raft with a black man named Timothy. They are on the raft and Phillip becomes blind. Finally they find this island in The Devils Mouth which is The Cay. In the end Phillip gets rescued and is not blind anymore but, he’s not with Timothy when he gets rescued. Timothy dies and was left on the Cay.

In the story there are two different locations, one is the islands of Curacao, Willemstad and the other one is on the Cay in the devils mouth. This story takes place in the year 1942 during world war two. Then they are getting attacked by people from the Dutch. I think Theodore Taylor choose to put the setting of the book near the islands of Curacao because when Theodore Taylor was visiting different islands he thought that is was the perfect island. He thought it was the perfect island because there were already palm trees and stuff like that on the island. I think he wanted the other setting in the island of Curacao because Timothy was from there so, Phillip and Timothy could get along well.

The main character in the Cay is Phillip who is from Virginia and is a tall, skinny, white boy. When he meets Timothy who is black Phillip thinks he was selfish and mean. Then after he gets to know Timothy they get to be better friends and care about each other. But, in the end of the story Phillip and Timothy really cared about each other. After Phillip became blind he asked Timothy if he was still black. He wanted to know that because Timothy could have been lying to Phillip what skin color he was. Phillip and Timothy became better to each other once they started to know each other.

I think that Theodore Taylor wrote the book because back then black people and white people couldn’t be near each other or drink from the same water fountain. He wanted to tell people that black and white people can get along and do things together. Like, in the book Phillip and Timothy didn’t like each other at the beginning but, later they did like each other. I think he wanted to do this because he wanted black and white people to be able to do things together and not be separated. In addition I think he wanted Phillip and Timothy to tell people in the story that is okay for black and white people to do things together.

I think it’s a good book because there is more then one problem and solutions in the story. I would probably rate this book and eight out of ten because the story was really good but, some parts were a little boring. Some good things about this book is Phillip and Timothy aren’t friends at the beginning, there is good vocabulary and they story is well written. I think that readers that like to read survival fiction or adventure would like the book because it was very active and exciting. They would like it because it is like an adventure to the reader about what is going to happen. You would really like this book a lot if you really enjoyed Adventure books.

Tess, I think you have a solid paper here and you show that you have a really good understanding of the novel. I'd like for you to work on a couple of areas of your writing. Read your paper aloud and listen to sentences that sound simple or choppy. Can you connect the sentence to the next or previous one? Can you add specific details about the characters and setting from the novel to extend the sentence? Pretend that the audience you are writing for knows nothing about the novel. Your job is to show that you're the expert. Let's work on these areas as you write more about literature. Again, good work. 18/20