The Black Pearl (Scott O'Dell)

The Black Pearl is a book for teens by Scott O'Dell first published in 1967. It is about the son of a pearl dealer living in the Lower California peninsula. It won the Newbery Honor in 1968.

Story

The story is about a Mexican teenager named Ramon Salazar who works with his father finding and selling pearls. One day, Ramon went diving in an underwater cave in search of pearls and found a pearl bigger than his fist. It was so shiny and big that he thought that it was called the Pearl of Heaven. The pearl was found in a lagoon that belonged to an Indian who warned Ramon that the pearl belonged to the Manta Diablo.

Movie adaptation

In 1977, Saul Swimmer directed the U.S.-Spanish co-production The Black Pearl, also known in Spanish as La Perla Negra.

Related pages

• Herman Melville: Moby-Dick (1851)
• John Steinbeck: The Pearl (1947) (also set among the pearl divers of La Paz)
• Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea (1952) (aging Cuban fisherman struggling with a giant marlin)