Timothy of the Cay - Hardcover

Taylor, Theodore

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152883584 ISBN 13: 9780152883584

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 1993

Synopsis

A continuation of the story that began in

About this title

About the Author

THEODORE TAYLOR (1921-2006), an award-winning author of many books for young people, was particularly known for fast-paced, exciting adventure novels. His books include the bestseller The Cay, Timothy of the Cay, The Bomb, Air Raid--Pearl Harbor!, Ice Drift, The Maldonado Miracle, and The Weirdo, an Edgar Award winner for Best Young Adult Mystery.

Reviews

Grade 5-8-Twenty-four years after publication of The Cay (Doubleday, 1987, 1969), Taylor returns to his story of a young white boy stranded on a Caribbean island with an elderly, resourceful black man. The narrative alternates between Phillip's first-person accounts of what happened to him after his rescue, and flashbacks in the third person telling Timothy's story, starting with his childhood in St. Thomas. In The Cay, readers learned how Phillip came to be on the torpedoed ship Hato; this prequel/sequel adds depth to Timothy's character through its treatment of episodes that led up to that event. The boy's story is less revealing than the man's, and some of it has already been told and is slightly contradicted by dates in the final chapter of The Cay. Faithful in tone, dialect, and characterization to the earlier title, Timothy does not delve as deeply into the theme of the first book. Instead, while it touches on racial prejudice, its focus is more on Phillip's appreciation of his friend and guardian angel, and on the adventurous and touching yarns of the West Indian man's life at sea. Those who enjoyed the earlier book will feel as though they're meeting up with old acquaintances and learning more about them, and will see the story come full circle when Phillip returns-with his sight-to the island.
Susan Knorr, Milwaukee Public Library, WI
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

" 'Tis a beautiful cay, dis cay,' Timothy had said. He was right." So says Phillip Enright after his first actual view of the islet on which, in The Cay , he was stranded with the old black sailor Timothy, who taught him to survive. Phillip's return to the isolated spot marks the culmination of a journey both physical and spiritual. In alternating chapters Taylor recounts the events following the blinded 12-year-old's rescue from the remote island, and chronicles Timothy's history as well. In the tradition of its predecessor, this "prequel/sequel" explores social and racial imbalances and draws a graceful parallel between Timothy's youthful struggle to achieve an unheard-of dream--the captaincy of his own boat--and Philip's courage in choosing to undergo a risky operation to restore his vision. At times, the author seems to apologize for Timothy's illiteracy, his stubbornness and his belief in the spirits called jumbis , which seems unnecessary, given the character's obvious dignity and deep-rooted wisdom. Somewhat more thoughtful than its well-loved antecedent, this boldly drawn novel is no less commanding. Ages 10-14.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Cay (the award-winning 1969 novel about racial prejudice in the 1940s) is the unseen vessel in the middle of a ``prequel/sequel'' in which Taylor explores both the black man Timothy's life as it leads up to the wreck of the Hato in the Caribbean during WW II and 12-year-old Phillip Enright's journey back to civilization after his rescue from the island. Alternating chapters follow Timothy from his early abandonment by his mother through his struggles to sail the sea and his command of his own ship; and Phillip's agony as he returns to the busy streets and busy lives of his parents, through an operation to regain his sight, and finally to a return with his father to Timothy's cay. Laced with a lilting island cadence, Timothy's chapters sketch a murky sea of racial prejudice; readers will ache with him at his losses. Phillip's chapters, in a terse first person, depict the narrowness of his mother's world with a clarity heightened by Phillip's blindness. A journey well worth taking. (Fiction. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152883584
• ISBN 13: 9780152883584
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 161