O'Dell, Scott

Scott O'Dell (May 23, 1898 - October 15, 1989) was an American children's author who wrote 26 novels for young people, along with three novels for adults and four non-fiction books. He was most notable for the children's novel Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960), which won the 1961 Newbery Medal and the 1963 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis as well as the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1961. Other award winning books by O'Dell include The King's Fifth (1966), Black Star, Bright Dawn (1988), The Black Pearl (1967), and Sing Down the Moon (1970); which were all also Newbery Honor award books. O'Dell wrote primarily historical fiction. Many of his children's novels are about historical California and Mexico.

There have been several film adaptations of O'Dell's work. Island of the Blue Dolphins has been translated into a number of languages and was made into a movie in 1964, starring Celia Kaye, Larry Domasin, Ann Daniel, and George Kennedy. In 1978, Saul Swimmer produced and directed a film version of The Black Pearl with Gilbert Roland and Mario Custodio. The King's Fifth was adapted into the 1982 television anime series Taiyou no Ko Esteban (The Mysterious Cities of Gold), a Japan-France co-production that was aired in several different countries.

(Source: Wikipedia)