The Cay Mass market paperbound - 2003

First line

LIKE SILENT, HUNGRY SHARKS that swim in the darkness of the sea, the German submarines arrived in the middle of the night.

From the jacket flap

Phillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curaao. 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.
When Phillip comes to, he is on a small raft in the middle of the sea. Besides Stew Cat, his only companion is an old West Indian, Timothy. Phillip remembers his mother's warning about black people: "They are different, and they live differently."
But by the time the castaways arrive on a small island, Phillip's head injury has made him blind and dependent on Timothy.

"From the Trade Paperback edition.

Media reviews

Praise for The Cay:
 
“Mr. 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
 
“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
 
* “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
 
“Starkly dramatic, believable and compelling.”—Saturday Review
 
“A tense and moving experience in reading.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Eloquently underscores the intrinsic brotherhood of man.”—Booklist
 
"This is one of the best survival stories since Robinson Crusoe."—The Washington Star

· A New York Times Best Book of the Year
· A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
· A Horn Book Honor Book
· An American Library Association Notable Book
· A Publishers Weekly Children’s Book to Remember
· A Child Study Association’s Pick of Children’s Books of the Year
· Jane Addams Book Award
· Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
· Commonwealth Club of California: Literature Award
· Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People Award
· Woodward School Annual Book Award
· Friends of the Library Award, University of California at Irvine


From the Hardcover edition.