On the raft with him is the biggest, oldest, ugliest black man he has ever seen, and the ship's cat, Stew. He recovers consciousness to find himself alone on an open raft in the middle of an empty sea, with a dully aching head. But the ship is torpedoed and during the evacuation process Phillip receives a crashing blow on the head. As the war worsens, Phillip's mother wants to take him back to America where he will be safer, so they board a small Dutch freighter, the SS Hato. It is 1942, Phillip is twelve years old and lives with his parents on the island of Curacao, off Venezuela, though he is in fact American. He takes the plain statement that we are all the same under the skin and illustrates it with a devastatingly simple story. We think we know the issues which surround racial prejudice so well, that it is difficult to be persuaded to think afresh. 'This is one of the best survival stories since Robinson Crusoe.I think this book is a masterpiece. “Eloquently underscores the intrinsic brotherhood of man.”- Booklist “A tense and moving experience in reading.”- Publishers Weekly “Starkly dramatic, believable and compelling.”- Saturday Review * “Fully realized setting…artful, unobtrusive use of dialect…the representation of a hauntingly deep love, the poignancy of which is rarely achieved in children’s literature.”- School Library Journal, Starred

“A taut tightly compressed story of endurance and revelation…At once barbed and tender, tense and fragile-as Timothy would say, ‘outrageous good.’”- Kirkus Reviews Taylor has provided an exciting story…The idea that all humanity would benefit from this special form of color blindness permeates the whole book…The result is a story with a high ethical purpose but no sermon.”- New York Times Book Review Phillip remembers his mother’s warning about black people: “They are different, and they live differently.”īut by the time the castaways arrive on a small island, Phillip’s head injury has made him blind and dependent on Timothy. Besides Stew Cat, his only companion is an old West Indian, Timothy. When Phillip comes to, he is on a small raft in the middle of the sea. War has always been a game to him, and he’s eager to glimpse it firsthand–until the freighter he and his mother are traveling to the United States on is torpedoed. Phillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curaçao. For fans of Hatchet and Island of the Blue Dolphins comes Theodore Taylor’s classic bestseller and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner, The Cay.

The cay by theodore taylor