Book Review: The Cay by Theodore Taylor

This is a book that I read when I was in middle school. I remember it as a positive memory from childhood because we were asked to write a sequel to the book. I was asked to read my story to the class because the teacher considered it the best in the class. That has always stuck with me, so I wanted to reread the book as an adult. Boy, did I read that.

Nostalgia does not always translate when we become adults. The reason sometimes is simply because we are not the same person we were when we originally interacted with the media item. We have changed as a person and better understand the world. This is definitely what occurred with “The Cay”. When I was a child, I lived in a small rural community where no one was African-American really. This book served a purpose for us small town folks, but reading it as a 42 year old gay male that lived in San Francisco, California. Being a person who has interacted with multicultural courses in their undergrad, graduate, and continuing education studies. My eyes saw this book in a way different light.

This book takes a young child and makes him blind so that technically he cannot see his new friend Timothy while they are stranded together. The “blind to racism” trope is strong here. The black character being only there for the white character to “learn a lesson” is also strong. There isn’t a lot to the character of Timothy in this book. Instead we are always forced into Phillip’s point of view that is always about hating some aspect of Timothy for the majority of the book. I can see this content differently now and it just made me wince more than anything. When this was published though, originally in 1969, this was more widely acceptable and was a needed perspective to change mentalities that were occurring in society at that particular turning-point of history.

Due to my own history with this book and how I felt on a personal level, I could not rate this as a two strawberries book because it wouldn’t be paying attention to the fact that this book helped define me not only as a reader, but as a human being. I was able to get the message when I first read it. It served a greater purpose at that point of my life, so to state that this is some book that should not be read I am unable to do. I can, however, state that if you are looking for a book to help teach you about the world and you are a young child there are going to be superior books to read at this time. We have luckily changed the narrative since when “The Cay” was originally published. It, however, serves a great point of showing the steps we have made in terms of fiction novels for young children.

Theodore Taylor wrote a second book that continues the story of “The Cay’ and it may also tell the story of something from the past. I am wondering if this book is to try to level out some of the issues that were present with the little to no characterization of Timothy. I intend to read this as well, mainly so that I can put these two books to rest and never read them again. They served their purpose in my life.