The Sign of the Beaver
Title: The Sign of the Beaver
Author: Elizabeth George Speare
Audience: probably 8-12, but I let my 7-year-old read it
Plot Summary: A thirteen-year-old boy, Matt, is left behind at the woodland frontier cabin he built with his father while his father leaves to bring the rest of their family to their new home. Matt meets and befriends a pair of Native American Indians who teach him a lot of survival skills and through whom Matt gains a deeper understanding of the Indians’ way of life.
Objectionable Content: I didn’t find anything objectionable, but there is one scene when Matt is reading from Robinson Crusoe that includes a passage from the book and a brief discussion about slavery; Attean refuses to believe that the native would offer himself as a slave to Crusoe, which initially confuses Matt. Later, Matt thinks about how he had also assumed that a white man would automatically be the master, but maybe that isn’t the right attitude to have. I would not say that Matt or his family are “racists;” it’s clear that he is wary of the Indians but only as he is wary of any stranger, and anything that could be read as a superior attitude is clearly from ignorance or culture shock.
Things to Note: One of the major themes of the book is the native peoples’ struggle to adapt to the influx of American settlers whose lifestyles unintentionally wreak havoc on the Indians’ lifestyle. At the end of the novel the entire clan leaves on their annual hunting trip, with the intention of not returning but instead continuing west to where they believe there will be less intrusion on their way of life and the wildlife on whom they depend for survival.
Also, perhaps the most crucial plot element of the book, which propels the entire novel, is that a strange man (with a criminal past, although he does not reveal his crime), randomly shows up at the cabin, makes himself at home, and steals Matt’s gun–his only source of protection and food for the weeks that his father is gone.
Final Verdict: I thought this book was similar to Cabin on Trouble Creek, but less of a survival story and more of a gentle introduction to the historical tensions between different peoples during the American frontier era. I’d recommend it.
Similar Books: Cabin on Trouble Creek