What is the genre of The Cay?
This is a good question to consider before reading: we want to know what kind of book this is, or how we should categorize it in relation to other books. In other words, what's the genre?
One answer is that The Cay is a work of historical fiction. That means it's a made-up story, but it takes place in a historically interesting time. We should understand that the main characters, Timothy and Phillip, are created by the author and aren't real people we'd find in a history textbook. But at the same time, we should understand that their adventure will reveal to us something about the real situation going on in the world during the time the story takes place. That is, the story says something about what life was like in 1942, during World War II, especially regarding the conflicts among the countries, the state of unrest...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
throughout the world, and the tense relationships between people of different races.
Another way to describe The Cay's genre is "juvenile fiction." That means it's a story written specifically for young people to read and enjoy; knowing this, we should expect the tale to be relatively short and simple. We should expect the general message and theme of the story to be positive and uplifting, even if there's tragedy in the plot itself. These expectations hold true for The Cay: it carries a strong message about friendship and the need to overcome racial tensions. We also see a great deal of hope and optimism coming from the characters as they deal with being stranded on an island.
Finally, you could even categorize The Cay with other award-winning novels. Though it hasn't won a Newbery medal, it has gathered an impressive list of awards, including the New York Times Best Book of the Year and the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. These awards indicate that the book should be taken seriously, because it has an important message to share with its readership and because the way it's written has been recognized as masterful.
What genre is the book "The Cay"?
I would say that the main genre for Theodore Taylor's book The Cay is children's literature. Evidence for this is the fact that the book is fairly short. The paperback version is only 156 pages long. That's not definitive proof of the book being children's literature, but the short length makes the book much more accessible to young readers.
The language of the book itself is accessible to young readers. The sentence structure is not overly complex, and the vocabulary is not beyond what middle school students can handle. Let's look at the opening of the story for an example.
Like silent, hungry sharks that swim in the darkness of the sea, the German submarines arrived in the middle of the night.
Notice how the simile is easily visualized by young readers. Sharks and darkness are things that kids know about at an early age, and both of those things would cause a young reader to be immediately tense.
The fact that Phillip is eleven years old is also evidence that supports the book being children's literature. Most authors try to create a protagonist that is similar in age to their intended readers. Children's books tend to be about children. Phillip isn't even a teenager yet.
Further support for the book being a children's or young adult book is the fact that it has won awards that are specifically awarded to children's books. For example, The Cay received the The Jane Addams Children's Book Award in 1970.
If I had to pick a sub-genre for the book, I would say that the book is in the survival genre. The reason for that is because the bulk of the book is about Timothy and Phillip trying to survive on a very small, deserted island during World War II. The author does a great job of alerting readers to the very many dangers that would be in that kind of environment.
Wondering what had caused the birds to attack me, I felt around in the sand. Soon, my hand touched a warm shell. I couldn't blame the birds very much. I'd accidentally walked into their new nesting ground.
They were fighting for survival, after the storm, just as I was.
This sequence of the book is great because I never would have thought birds could be that much of a threat. But those birds are trying to scratch out a meager existence in the same way that Phillip is.