Twelve year old Mary Wallace and her ten year old sister Jean are on the S. S. Orminta sailing from San Francisco to Australia. Several years earlier, when their mother died, their father went to Australia to manage a big ranch and, while he was deciding whether he wanted to stay or not, left his daughters with their Aunt Emma, Uncle Angus, and Cousin Alex in Scotville, IA. Now the girls were heading to meet Mr. Wallace. However, a huge tropical storm arises, and the boat begins to sink. Mary and Jean both love babies and have been playing with several on board. So they go to check on them and see if they are safe.

The two find the three Snodgrass babies, two year old twins Elijah and Elisha and their younger brother Jonah, all alone. So assuming that the parents must have gone off to see what was happening, the girls rescue the babies. As they are getting into a lifeboat, Mr. Arlington asks them to watch his baby, one year old Ann Elizabeth, while he goes to find his wife. Suddenly, the lifeboat is lowered into the water and begins to drift. Eventually, it washes ashore on a deserted island, which they decide to call Baby Island. What will happen to the six youngsters? How can they survive? Will they ever be rescued? And who or what made those big footprints in the sand? As improbable as the plot may seem, this book by Carol Ryrie Brink, who also wrote Caddie Woodlawn, which won the Newbery Medal in 1936, and its sequel, originally called Magical Melons but later retitled Caddie Woodlawn’s Family, is a cute story.

One of my first kids books. Found it in my daughter’s shelf. I only estimate I may have read it in 1985, Didn’t know it was published in the 30s

One of a handful of books that I reread weekly for years. Was there anything better than getting the Scholastic Book flyer every month and figuring out how many books you could afford to buy and trying to earn free books? :)

As a child the story seemed plausable; as an adult it seems unrealistic. It appealed to the adventure-lover in me just like Pippi Longstocking, and I thought the girls were very brave and resourceful and wanted to believe that I could be like them if I was thrown into the same situation.

This is the first book that I remember reading on my own. I was in third grade and loved it! 5 star for a very young girl.

Just read it again and it is darling.

This book is actually quite terrible--unbelievable, ridiculous, and contrived--but I read it so many times when I was a kid (ha, and even acted it out with my sister and our dolls--I was Mary...) that I'm fond of it even so.

A cheerful little book about young girls who are stranded on a deserted island with four babies. Unbelievable? Yes. But charming? Yes.

One of my absolute favorites.These two girls love adventure and babys.Their just like me.I have read it several times.

The kids LOVED this one! My 9 year old boy was so irritated that we chose a GIRLY book this time, but within a couple of chapters, he was BEGGING me to keep reading, and now he has his first-ever book-hangover. The storyline is vaguely ridiculous, but that's what makes it so fun! Babies, shipwreck, desert islands, pirates, storms, and monkeys! What more could you want?

Read with Lila for school

Recommended for ages 8-12, but tentatively on my 6-year-old's reading list for this year, this book had me a little nervous, and I decided to read ahead. I was delighted by this story, written back in the 1930s, about two sisters whose fondness for babysitting gets them into thrilling adventures as they are shipwrecked with four babies. I've read the first couple of chapters aloud to my two girls (6 and 4), and they are enchanted. It appeals to their love of wee ones--as Mary, the elder sister, often quotes, "there's a heap of good in just holding a nice clean baby"--as well as any child's fascination with imaginary desert islands, like those depicted in Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson (except much tamer). As for me, I was impressed by the vocabulary Ms. Brink used (not too old-fashioned, but really rich), as well as the fun references to the Scottish ancestry of the two American protagonists. I determined, however, that it is these types of references (the girls often sing "Scots, Wha Hae Wi' Wallace Bled" to bolster their spirits, with all the Gaelic spellings) that make this book a good read-aloud for my daughter, rather than something for her to trudge through on her own. I even learned the melody of the song from YouTube, and am practicing my Scottish accent for singing. :) Finally, I admonished myself a few times as I read, since my grown-up perspective was trying to get in the way of believing that two young girls could care so well for themselves and four babies on the open sea and on a desert island. There are elements of this story that, despite the book's roots in realism, seem too fantastic to be possible. But the children believe it, because they are children, and that's really one of the things I love most about them. So we'll read it aloud, and I'm excited for my girls to reread on their own when their perspectives have broadened just a tiny bit.

rating: 3.5

This has all of the elements of a story that I would have loved as a child. How did I not stumble across it at the library!? Babies. An island. No adults. Adventure. A little suspense. ... (I can't say more without spoiling the story.)

After the shipwreck, Mary (the eldest child, age 12), wasn't worried about their plight because she had read books about people who'd been shipwrecked. Here's what she told her younger sister (age 10):

"Why, the public library at home is just full of books about shipwrecked people who landed on tropical islands. And did you ever see a book written by a person who was drowned at sea? I never did." p. 9

My mom sent L (9) this book for her birthday quite a while ago, and we finally got around to reading it. She had really liked this book as a little girl, and then I read it a bunch when I was a little girl, too. We figured with L's love of caregiving to all of her "babies" and stuffies that she would enjoy this adventure story, too. F (6) also listened to this one with us.
The girls did really enjoy this story. I had fun reading it, too, as it involves an opportunity to do fun accents for the "pirate" and his parrot. The book is dated, as it was published in 1937. There were quite a few references I had to explain to the girls so that the story would make sense to them, but not too much that stood out as especially problematic as viewed through my preferred progressive 21st century lens.
This spawned quite a few related make believe games at my house, which is always a sign of a much-enjoyed book.