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(More customer reviews)Sequels are almost always a let-down. I loved IotBD in grade school, and was thrilled to discover the sequel -- twenty-five years later, while in the library with kids of my own. I took it home and devoured it, but was left dissatisfied.
Not only does Zia's story pale in comparison to Karana's heroic survival, but several moments left me frowning with annoyance.
First of all, the plot inconsistencies drove me mad. Midway through the book, we are given to believe that all the young people at the mission have run away, leaving only Karana and some old Indians behind. (This is crucial to the plot, as she alone is blamed by the cruel captain as a suspected accomplice of the runaways.) But then we learn, out of the blue, that her brother has also remained behind -- but we're never told why. Later, when Karana comes to the mission and is given a bed in the girls' sleeping quarters, I thought this room would now be desolate -- but O'Dell tells us it's still crowded. With whom?
Sadly too, the character of Karana takes a beating in this book. In IotBD, she was a hero, larger than life. But seen through Zia's eyes, she is a mute and pitiable recluse lost in a foreign world, who takes childish delight in melons. This might be realistic, but it's a pathetic turn of events that I would rather not have read.
There is also a tragic irony that runs through the plot, to wit: Karana left her island to seek companionship at long last. But in the sequel, we learn that she ends up withdrawing to an isolated cave where she recreates a tinier, sadder version of her free life on the island, before finally dying of a broken heart. Zia, meanwhile, originally left her home village for the regimented life of the Mission solely in the hope of finding Karana -- but in the end, what she learns from Karana is that she'd be better off back home.
In other words, both characters would have been better off if Zia had never heard of Karana and Karana had died on her island. And I think I would have been better off had I not stumbled across this book.
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