# The Cay

**Author:** Theodore Taylor
**Grade range:** Grades 5–8
**Age range:** 10–13
**First published:** 1969
**Page count:** 144
**Genre:** Historical Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780812415292`
**ISBN-10:** `0440416639`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/the-cay
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Theodore Taylor's 1969 survival novel is set during World War II, when eleven-year-old Phillip is shipwrecked and stranded on a tiny Caribbean cay with Timothy, an elderly West Indian sailor. Blinded in the wreck and forced to rely on the man he had been taught to look down on, Phillip slowly sheds his prejudice as Timothy teaches him to survive.

## Themes

- survival
- friendship
- race
- courage

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