The Cay

I am astonished at all the things I learned from reading this very short children's chapter book. I never knew that Caribbean islands lay just offshore from Venezuela in South America. I never knew there were valuable oil refineries on these islands. And I never knew the Germans tried to destroy these refineries during World War II.

All of which appears in this story and all of which are based on true events.

A wonderful little story about a boy who connects unexpectedly with a person he'd thought to be inferior to him when the two are stranded on an island together. It's the setting that provides much of the charm, but it's also the way the author is able to continue to tell the story through our first person narrator even after the boy is blinded.

Nicely done.