I’d not heard of this book before but apparently it’s very well known in America. Having read it, I can see why. It was published in 1969. The author dedicated it to Martin Luther King. It’s basically the Civil Rights’ Movement as a children’s book, arguing for integration of the races through the story of a white boy and an old black man cast away on an island in the Caribbean. In that respect, it seems slightly old fashioned in its insistence on Martin Luther King’s old dictum, that people be judged by their character rather than their colour, when set against today’s fractionated landscape where people are judged precisely by their position in the current victims’ hierarchy.

The castaway boy, Phillip, isn’t particularly prejudiced but he judges the old black man he is cast away with through the eyes of the 1940s, when the story is set. Then, in a nice twist, Phillip loses his sight and has to rely on old Timothy for his survival. It turns out that Timothy is prepared to go further than Phillip would have had any right to expect to ensure the boy’s survival. It’s a moving turn to the story, and gives it a seriousness that it would otherwise lack.

I’m not sure that it’s particularly relevant today, at least not in Britain, but it serves as an interesting testament to where people were coming from when it came out.