Shifting Perspectives in Two Mid-Twentieth-Century Robinsonades

This chapter contends that Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins and Michel Tournier’s Friday and Robinson are works of didactic fiction which pose to young readers questions of historical, political, and cultural concern and, moreover, which allow for readers to develop their own critical skills in response to such concerns. It also argue that, through the highlighting of reasoned debate, forced shifts in perspective, and a playful exposure of received social laws, both Island of the Blue Dolphins and Friday and Robinson are examples of educational literature par excellence, precisely because they engender within the reader the ability to critically analyse, interpret, and independently draw conclusions from the texts’ events.