Baby Island

Baby Island is a children's novel by Carol Ryrie Brink, first published in 1937. It resembles Robinson Crusoe in that the protagonists Mary and Jean are stranded on a desert island – but with four babies. The novel was republished many times over the next several decades.[1]

First edition (publ. Macmillan)

Plot summary

The book begins with the Wallace sisters, twelve-year-old Mary and ten-year-old Jean, traveling alone on a ship to meet their father in Australia. The girls often babysit young children: at home, they had enjoyed "borrowing" the babies of neighbors.

Their ship is disabled in a storm, and the two girls are set adrift in a lifeboat with four babies, the children of fellow passengers. The craft eventually drifts to a tropical island, and in a Robinson Crusoe-like scenario, they must learn to build shelter and survive on wild foodstuffs. They do this with great success, while raising the babies through various developmental milestones and adopting a baby monkey who they raise alongside the babies.

Throughout the story, the girls sing "Scots Wha Hae" to inspire their courage to deal with their situation.

In the latter part of the book the girls also encounter a character like Friday: a mysterious, gruff man who lives alone on the island and dislikes children. He eventually warms to their babies, and they enjoy his company and his useful craftsmanship.

Finally, the girls are rescued on Christmas Day, after a storm, and all the babies are returned to their parents. They miss the Friday.

gollark: An actual employee? No. We'll use HTech™ Personality Constructs™.
gollark: Also, to help with sleep monitoring, it will ship with an optional EEG headset.
gollark: A what? No, this is the osmarksßßsmartwatch™.
gollark: Anyway, the osmarksßßsmartwatch™ will also incorporate the latest sensor technology, like an accelerometer, a compass for some reason also, a thermometer, a barometer, a humidity sensor, a light level/UV/IR sensor, an ultrasonic distance sensor, a regular microphone, an irregular microphone, lidar, radar, an infrared thing, two incompatible software defined radios, that one weird IC some company made for some reason to detect lightning strikes nearby, a spectrometer, LEDs abused as photodetectors, a DVD player (DVDs must be shrunken or trimmed before use), a portable DNA sequencer, a multi-axis Hall effect sensor, phased array satellite transceivers, atmospheric bismuth concentration meters, an apiometer, a mouse trackball, an optical mouse (miniaturized), a full 22-key keyboard, 3 dedicated hardware buttons, a fan noise detector and estimator, and a blood oxygen concentration reader.
gollark: We'll send them cardboard models.

References
  1. Editions of Baby Island at WorldCat
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