This book is called “The Cay” and it takes place on the Dutch island of Curacao during WW2. The main characters Philip Enright and Timothy are stranded at sea on a raft. Before this all happened Phillip was a normal white kid who came to this island from Virginia, and Timothy was a black carabien man living on the fishing docks. They both came on a boat as complete strangers trying the get to America to escape the war, when the boat they were on got torpedoed by a German-U-Boat. The ship started sinking and everyone escaped to the life rafts, Philip made it to a raft and then a falling piece of the boat landed on him and knocked him out. He woke up on a raft with Timothy and was separated from his mother. Philipe was a bit racist at the beginning of the book and you could see this when he was talking about him to the readers. He was calling him a stupid black man and a stinky black man. Timothy was caring for Philip, but there was a problem. Water. Philip was in agonizing pain and he went temporarily blind making him reliant on the man he hates. Timothy was incredibly conservative and only gave Philip a little bit of water. Eventually, they found a little Cay with trees surrounded by a reef with many crabs and sharks. They land on the island and the first thing Timothy does is go exploring around the island, he leaves Philipe alone and he gets scared and starts yelling for Timothy. Timothy comes and calms Philipe down, this moment is important because it shows Timothy that the color of your skin doesn't matter. Timothy made a fort so they had shelter and a place to sleep. Timothy then made ropes for Philip knowing that he was old and there was a big chance of him dying on the island before they could get rescued. After a few weeks on the island, Timothy began to sense that a storm was coming and a big one. They started getting supplies and making a stronger fort to protect them from the hurricane. The hurricane hit them but much harder than they expected, they had to ditch the fort once the eye of the storm came. They tied themselves up to a palm tree and Timothy was on the back of Philipe taking all of the wind and waves crashing on them. Once the storm died out Timothy and Philip woke up, but Philip didn't wake up to what he was hoping to wake up to. He woke up to the dead body of Timothy, the one who had helped and taken care of him the whole time on the raft and on the Cay. He was also a friend to Philip. Philip began to care for himself, and he went fishing even tho it was very difficult because he was still blind, but he made it work from what Timothy taught him. Philip eventually heard a roaring noise over the ocean and it was a plane, he lit a fire and then a day later a boat came to rescue him. He was returned to his mom and dad. This experience gave Philip maturity and a sense of equality for everyone and everything.
I thought this book was very good and very empowering with the message the author is conveying about equality and trust. My advice for future readers is to really take your time with the book and take in the advice because the more you read it the more the book will teach you.
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