Headed for Canada to visit his father for the first time since his parents' divorce, thirteen-year-old Brian is the sole survivor of a plane crash, with only the clothes he has on and a hatchet to help him live in the wilderness. .

Far off the coast of California loos a harsh rock known as San Nicolas Island. Blue dolphins splash in the water surrounding it, sea otters play in the kelp beds, and seabirds roots in its crags. Once, Indians also lived on the island-until one day they decided to leave and sail east. A young girl was left behind. Karana is that girl. Year after year, she waits for the ship to come back. But it never does. Finally, she realizes she must make a fateful...

Jane, Buzz, Carter, and Vanessa, aged nine to thirteen, are on a sailing trip in the South Pacific intended to help them bond in their newly-blended family when a massive storm strands them on a deserted island.

After his experiences surviving alone in the Canadian wilderness, sixteen-year-old Brian finds it increasingly difficult to live as a normal high school student and begins planning to return to the place where he feels he really belongs.