Nim Rusoe

Nim Rusoe is the main protagonist of the 2008 film Nim's Island and the sequel Return to Nim's Island. She is portrayed by Abigail Breslin in Nim's Island and Bindi Irwin in Return to Nim's Island.

Nim's Island
Nim Rusoe is an eleven-year-old girl whose mother Emily, an oceanographer has died. Her dad, Jack Rusoe, a marine biologist, has told her that the oceanographer was swallowed to death by a blue whale after it was scared by a ship called the Buccaneer. Nim lives with her father on a South Pacific island and has animals for company: Selkie the sea lion, Chica the sea turtle, Fred the bearded dragon and Galileo the pelican.

Jack takes the boat for a two-day scientific mission of to find Protozoa nim (a new species of plankton); he wants to take his daughter along, but she convinces him that she needs to stay to oversee the imminent hatching of Chica's eggs and can manage on her own; they will be able to communicate by satellite phone and is left alone.

Nim is fond of Alex Rover adventure books written by Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), receives an email addressed to her father with an inquiry about his field of knowledge. The sender, "Alex Rover", seems to be the explorer, but is actually Alexandra, a neurotic San Franciscan who constantly imagines that she is speaking to her fictional character Alex Rover. An email conversation follows. She goes to the island with the volcano, but injures her leg and it's all swollen and bleeding.

When Nim's dad suffers a shipwreck in a hurricane, she tries to call him, but gets no answer. Nim explains the situation to "Alex", but Alexandra suffers from agoraphobia and never leaves the house or even opens the door. The buccaneers from Brisbane, Australia, come to take over the island whom Nim believes to be pirates. As the tourists approach the island, Nim hides and makes it seem uninhabitable by catapulting lizards to shore. She also makes a fire in the crater of the volcano, which fools the tourists. By rolling down boulders to simulate an avalanche, she inadvertently activates a geyser. Without revealing herself, she gets out of the crater just in time as a plume of steam bursts out. Down at the beach the tourists scramble to the boats. One of them, a boy named Edmund, sees her and catches up with Nim. He is confused by her presence and she tells him she lives on the island and he believes her to be another tourist. Meanwhile, Alexandra travels to the island to "rescue" Nim, but she, expecting "Alex" (the male character), at first rejects Alexandra.

Nim later befriends Alexandra and they share a meal. The next day, Nim starts to cry, reasoning that her ever-successful father would be back by then if he were still alive. Fortunately, Jack reaches the island windsurfing on a makeshift catamaran. Jack and Alex meet and begin to get to know each other, and the film ends with them all playing on the beach using a coconut as a soccer ball.

Return to Nim's Island
Three years later after the events of the first film in the sequel, Nim (now a teenager) realizes that her island is now facing yet a new challenge. The operators of the ship Buccaneer have gotten permission to develop a pirate resort on the island, and Nim and her father pursue separate plans to stop them. She then runs into Edmund who has just run away from home to the island and has advertently bought poachers with him. With her father, Jack Rusoe away on the mainland, Nim and Edmund must learn to work together in order to save the island from the poachers.