Derek Straker
English Comp. Apps per. 1-2
Sept. Book Report
10/6/00

There was a big explosion and the ship started to sink. Somehow Phillip ended up on a raft with a big black

man. Would they be rescued?

The Cay is by Theodore Taylor. The publisher of this book is Avon Flare. The copyright date is 1969. There

are 144 pages in the book.

The setting is in the city of Willemstad on the island of Curacao, which is one of the Dutch islands off the coast

of Venezuela. It is February, 1942. The weather is warm. The houses look somewhat like houses out of a fairy tale.

They are painted in soft pinks, greens, and blues. The setting contrasts with the main character, Phillip, because he is

curious and disobeying, while the town is calm.

One of the main characters is Timothy. He is a large man in his 70s. Phillip describes him by saying, "He was

ugly. His was nose flat and his face was broad; his head was a mass of wiry gray hair." Timothy’s strength is that he

knows how to survive in rough times. He knows that he would have to save food and water. He knows how to use all

his resources that were given to him on the island. He made a water catcher out of palm tree branches. He also made

many fishing poles using nails as hooks. He is also kind, cautious and smart. One of his weaknesses is that since he is

old he isn’t agile enough to climb a tree to get fresh coconuts.

The biggest problem that the main characters came across was how they were going to get off the island. They

solved this problem by catching their own food like fish, lobster, and scallops. They also made huts and mats to sleep

on. They had a fire burning at all times, so if they heard a plane or ship they could rush a piece of burning wood to a

big pile of dried leaves and create a signal fire.

The message of this book is that you can survive in difficult times if you work together, because when Phillip

and Timothy were not getting along it was harder for them to survive. This is true for everyone else in the world, because

many jobs from Microsoft programming to building a house, require people to work together to accomplish more.