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Scott O'Dell was born on May 23, 1903 in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. He grew up near the sea and lived on a house on stilts and the waves came up and washed under his house every day. He believes that is why the sound of the sea is in his books  Scott O'Dell was asked why he likes to write books for young people. He replied "Writing for children is more fun than writing for adults and more rewarding.... If children like your book they respond for a long time, by thousands of letters. It is this response, this concern and act of friendship, that for me makes the task of writing worth doing,"

Other books by Scott O'Dell

Zin

The 290

Alexandra

Black Pearl

Black Star Bright Dawn

My Name Is Not Angelica

The Castle in the Sea

Sing Down the Moon

El Quinto Real

The Captive

King's Fifth

Carlota

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Scott O'Dell has written many historical fiction books such as his Newberry Medal book, ãIsland of the Blue Dolphinsä. The Scott O'Dell Award for historical fiction is named in his honor. His stories of high adventure usually take place on the West Coast or in Southwestern United States. Some of his stories have a twist to the downside of major events, such as his ãSarah Bishoä. Sarah Bishop lives during the Revolutionary War and through a set of circumstances is forced to flee away from her home to the West. The British want to arrest her and the Rebels have killed her father who refused to join the rebellion. In a similar vein, ãMy Name Is Angelicaä tells of an African girl who is captured and enslaved in the West Indies. Whites want to treat her in a manner thatshe doesn't like.

Eskimos and Aleuts

Eskimos and Aleuts are Native Americans. Both peoples are racially similar to Siberian people, and their languages are from the same language family. In their migrations from across the bridge that connected Asia and North America, Eskimos settled in the Arctic region of the continent. The Aleuts inhabited the Aleutian Islands, a chain of rugged, volcanic islands west of the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula. The first Europeans to meet these people were Vikings who lived on Greenland. Beginning in the 1500's explorers met Eskimos in the eastern regions of Arctic North America, then Russians and other European explorers arrived in the 1700's. Aleuts were first noticed by Vitus Jonassen Bering in 1741, and like the Eskimos, they were skilled in hunting and fishing. In the 1800's, these northern people began to work for European whalers and fur traders, trading with them for rifles, ammunition, iron, wood, and other goods. With rifles they could hunt more efficiently, but most of them continued to live as their ancestors lived hundreds of years earlier. In the early 1900's, the quantity of game animals was greatly reduced, and Eskimos began to herd reindeer, which the U.S. brought from Siberia. They presently herd in the North Slope and Nunivak Island.

In 1867 the Secretary of State, William H. Seward, bought Alaska and the Aleutian Islands from Russia for $7,200,000. For many years the land remained neglected, because it did not seem to offer any immediate financial return. People at that time believed it to be almost worthless, and they referred to it as "Seward's Folly". After the discovery of gold in 1880, however, Alaska had a governor with a local administration. Eskimos became citizens of the United States in 1924, but Alaska was not admitted into the union as the 49th state until 1959. The capital city of Alaska is Juneau, but Anchorage is larger. Ketchikan and Fairbanks are modern cities, but there are wild stretches of Alaska only dotted by small villages. The villages depend on the towns for their supplies which come by jet planes and by barges in the summer.

Livelihood

Hunting and fishing have always been important for the Eskimo, because they provided materials for food and also clothing, tents and weapons.

Family Life

Group life among the Eskimo people varies in size from one family to several hundred people. The size of the groups depends on the type of hunting taking place during different seasons. They might form a large group when seal hunting during the winter, and split into smaller groups to look for other game. Eskimos in northern Alaska often move in the greatest numbers in the summer and fall when they hunt caribou.

You may think of Eskimos as living in igloos, but most have homes with electricity for refrigeration, television, etc. Sometimes they build their own homes or live in housing that has been built for them. The Eskimo family is an extended one consisting of the husband, wife, unmarried children, married sons and their wives and children.

They might number 20 people or more, and might all live in one house or a cluster of shelters. Eskimos treasure their children and rarely punish them. In the past they often chose marriage partners for them in early childhood. Eskimos govern themselves by rules of conduct rather than laws. The most important ones require everyone to help in the struggle to survive and to live peacefully with others in the group. They make special efforts to avoid arguments and disagreements.

Recreation

In the long, dark winters and stormy weather, the people need to engage themselves in activities they enjoy. Eskimos love to have fun and like strength activities such as tug of war, as well as the telling of stories and singing. Today, village high schools host such activities as basketball, track, and Eskimo Olympics.