Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink, for the #1937Club

Title: Baby Island
Author: Carol Ryrie Brink
Illustrator: Helen Sewell
Publication: Macmillan, hardcover, 1937
Genre: Juvenile fiction

Description: Twelve-year-old Mary Wallace and her younger sister Jean are on their way to Australia from San Francisco to join their father, who has been managing a ranch there for the past two years. Mary and Jean have long been devoted to other people’s babies and entertain themselves by playing with those on the ship. When the S.S. Orminta is struck by a storm and starts to sink, Mary, with great presence of mind, rushes to help the Snodgrass family with their three babies. She and Jean finds the babies alone in their stateroom so the girls bundle them up and go up on deck where sailors put all five in a lifeboat. Then the father of the other baby they have been playing with sees the girls and asks them to take his Ann Elizabeth for a moment while he goes back for her mother. The lifeboat is launched and the girls float away with four babies, fortunately washing ashore on a small island about two days later. 

Using the supplies on the lifeboat, their own common sense, and plentiful humor, Mary and Jean create a makeshift home on the island and care for the babies. When their courage wanes, Mary reminds them they are Wallaces and they sing the patriotic “Scots, Wha Hae wi’ Wallace Bled,” which always restores their self-confidence. They encounter trials on the island – high tide, running out of milk for the babies, wild monkeys, a mysterious stranger with a missing toe, and trying to observe the sabbath, but come up with creative housekeeping ideas and manage to make a temporary home for themselves and their charges. But can they survive the perils of a desert island until they are rescued?

My Impression: Brink is best known for her Newbery Award Winner (1936), Caddie Woodlawn, a historical novel set in the 1860s Wisconsin about a lively eleven-year-old tomboy nicknamed Caddie, based on her grandmother’s childhood on the frontier. Other books were based on her own childhood in Idaho, including my favorite, Two Are Better Than One, but I would recommend any of her books you are fortunate enough to come across. In her introduction to Baby Island, she explains that ‘borrowing babies’ was very popular with some of the little girls she knew, before babysitting was invented. This book is essentially a fantasy, not least because diapers are never mentioned as part of the Wallace girls’ adventure, but it is extremely funny.

“Now, Jean,” said Mary firmly, “we’ve just got to be brave. I planned everything out last night while you were asleep and the boat was drifting along. Mr. Snodgrass was telling me only the other day that there are hundreds of little islands in this part of the sea, and I’m hoping to reach one before night.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because shipwrecked people always do,” said Mary decidedly. “Why, the public library at home is just full of books about shipwrecked people who landed on tropical islands. And did you ever see a book written by a person who was drowned at sea? I never did.”

Jean thought hard. “No,” she said doubtfully, “but all I can say is, I wish we’d hurry up and get there.”

Coincidentally, I recently reread Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, in which Dorothy is also heading to Australia (with her Uncle Henry) and gets swept from the ship during a storm to her own adventures. It is hard to imagine sending two little girls on a ship to Australia without an adult, even in fiction. However, Mary is a very practical older sister, more than capable of minding a sibling, and Jean provides a lot of comic relief. They know they must find fresh water on the island in order to survive and when they find a viable stream, they know this is salvation and attempt a highland fling:

“Mary, aren’t we like the Ancient Mariner or Balboa discovering the Pacific Ocean or something? Shouldn’t we take possession of this place in the name of good Queen Bess or Mary, Queen of Scots or something?”

“Well, something,” agreed Mary uncertainly. “I think it ought to be in the name of the President of the United States, though, really.”

They have various adventures with the four babies on the island, even taming a “savage” they encounter, which Jean chronicles periodically. She had promised to write regularly to Aunt Emma, with whom the girls lived for two years after their father set off for Australia. As there are no bottles, she puts her letters into empty cans and sends them off, hoping for the best!

The 1937 Club is hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings to share reviews of books published in that year. I laugh every time Mary bullies Jean into singing “Scots, Wha Hae wi’ Wallace Bled.” It's for her own good!  You do not need to like babies as much as Mary and Jean to enjoy this comic adventure!

Source: Personal copy

Off the Blog: I'm in Shreveport, Louisiana for a few days for a conference.  This pretty church, the First Baptist Church, is a beautiful landmark near the restaurant at which we dined.

A pleasant evening at the Abby Singer's Bistro.