Island of the Blue Dolphins is a 1960 children's novel by American writer Scott O'Dell, which tells the story of a girl named Karana, who is stranded alone for years on an island off the California coast. It is based on the true story of Juana Maria, a Nicoleño Native American left alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island during the 19th century. Island of the Blue Dolphins won the Newbery Medal in 1961. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1964. O'Dell later wrote a sequel, Zia, published in 1976. Island of the Blue Dolphins has been the subject of much literary and pedagogical scholarship related to survival, feminism, the resilience of Indigenous peoples, and beyond. Historical basis The novel is based on the true story of "The Lone Woman of San Nicholas Island," a Nicoleño Native Californian who lived alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island, one of the Channel Islands off the California coast. Around 1835, the Nicoleño people were taken aboard a ship headed for California with the intention that missionaries would convert them upon arrival on the mainland. Once aboard the ship, the Lone Woman realized that her infant was still on the island, prompting her to jump off the ship and care for her child. Due to inclement sea-faring weather, the ship could not return and she lived on the island for nearly two decades before being discovered and taken to the mainland in 1853 by sea otter hunter Captain George Nidever and his crew. According to Nidever, the Lone Woman lived in a structure supported by whale ribs and stashed useful objects around the island. She was baptized and given the Christian name Juana Maria, assigned to her by the Santa Barbara Mission where she eventually was brought. No one alive at that time spoke her language, so she struggled to communicate using a form of sign language. Just as the other Nicoleño Natives, who had previously been brought to the mainland, the Lone Woman died of dysentery after seven weeks. In 2009, the University of Oregon archaeologist Jon Erlandson found two old redwood boxes eroding from an island sea cliff, with whalebone placed on top of them. With colleagues René Vellanoweth, Lisa Barnett-Thomas, and Troy Davis, Erlandson salvaged the boxes and other artifacts before they were destroyed by erosion. Vellanoweth and Barnett-Thomas examined the contents in