The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare

KLIATT Codes: JS*-Exceptional book, recommended for junior and senior high school students. He conveys their youth without overstatement, a difficult task for some narrators. Schaffert imbues the story with Matt's courage, fear, and uncertainty as well as Attean's grudging friendship for a white boy. When Matt meets Attean, a boy in the Beaver clan, he begins to better understand their way of life and their growing problem in adapting to the white man and the changing frontier.Elizabeth George Speare’s Newbery Honor-winning survival story is filled with wonderful detail about living in the wilderness and the relationships that formed. A great choice for family listening, as the listener inevitably considers how s/he would have dealt with Matt's challenges. When Matt's father does not arrive and Matt realizes he must face the winter alone, he has to decide whether to go with the Indians as they move their village or stay at the homestead alone. But as the boys get to know one another throughout the months ahead, both are surprised by the friendship that is forged. Matt is reluctant, due largely to Attean's seeming contempt for the activity. Title, The Sign of the Beaver Author, Elizabeth George Speare Edition, reprint Publisher, Houghton Mifflin, 1983 ISBN, 0440228301, 9780440228301. She also received a Newbery Honor Award in 1983, and in 1989 she was presented with the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for her substantial and enduring contribution to children's literature. In repayment, Matt agrees - at the grandfather's request - to teach Attean to read. Elizabeth George Speare (1908-1994) won the 1959 Newbery Medal for THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND, and the 1962 Newbery Medal for THE BRONZE BOW. Matt, in quest of honey when the molasses runs out, is badly stung, surviving only due to the assistance of Attean, a young Indian, and his grandfather, a chief. Matt is left to take care of the pioneer home he and his father have built on the land they purchased in Maine when his father returns to Massachusetts to fetch Matt's mother and sister. Schaffert gives Speare's classic story of a 12-year-old boy facing the challenges of young manhood a straightforward yet spirited reading. Moxley (KLIATT Review, September 1998 (Vol.

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare