The Sign of the Beaver (Book Review)

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Title: The Sign of the Beaver
Author: Elizabeth George Speare
Publication Date: February 1983 (novel), 2008 (audio)
Producer: Listening Library
Narrated by: Greg Schafffert
Recording Time: 3 hours, 11 minutes

THE PLOT:

via wiki

The novel tells the story of 13-year-old Matthew James “Matt” Hallowell, an 18th-century American settler. He and his father build a log cabin in the wilderness of Maine, then he is left alone to guard it and his family’s claim to the land while his father heads back to Quincy, Massachusetts to pick up his mother, sister, and the new baby and bring them back to the cabin. He learns how to survive and deal with difficult situations, getting help from a Native American boy named Attean and his family. When Matt fears his family will not show up, Attean asks him to join the Beaver tribe and move north with them.

Ultimately Matt decides to wait for his family through the winter, and is rewarded when they eventually arrive just before Christmas.

The Review

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare is a a highly enjoyable American historical fiction about a twelve year old boy, Matt, coming of age while living alone in his family’s newly purchased frontier cabin, while his father is away fetching his mother and sister to come and join them. In his time alone, he deals with an adult frontiersman who robs him, a bear who ransacks his house, and bee stings, largely with the help of a local Native tribe, and in particular a boy not much older than himself, Attean.

This is a quick read with a story that never lags or grows dull. It’s also well-written for its audience in that it exposes its readers to a lot of potentially difficult issues without overtly trying to traumatize them to make a point. The message for the children is also a good one, namely that we can and should find commonalities with people who are different than we are, because our shared humanity will often find bridges that allow for friendship. The novel also makes the point, over and over, that there are multiple ways to achieve an end, and the one most common to ourselves might not necessarily be the best one.

The Sign of the Beaver was published in 1983 and it won a bunch of awards, namely:

• 1983 Josette Frank Award (won as prize)
• 1984 Christopher Award (won as prize)
• 1984 Booklist Editors’ Choice (won)
• 1984 Horn Book Fanfare (won)
• 1984 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction (won as prize)
• 1984 Newbery Honor book
• 1984 ALA Notable Children’s Book citation
• 1984 ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults citation
• 1983–1984 Young Hoosier Book Award (nominee) 
• 1989 New York Times Best Book of the Year 

My only complaint about the book is not with the story itself, which I enjoyed a lot, but rather the pattern it perpetuates within children’s literature over the last several decades. There is an undertone within the story that follows along the lines of “everything would be better without white people.” The thief in the story was white. The white settlers are presented as untrustworthy in treaties, wasteful with how they use the land, and inefficient and cruel with how they tame their surroundings. This was most manifest in the over-killing of beavers and the metal traps used to snare animals and leave them in agony. Can that be true in one set of circumstances – such as the one from this story? Absolutely. However, if that is the only type of story you present to children, you might subtly be training them to hate white people and their ancestors. You’d be hard-pressed to find recent (the last several decades) children’s literature that doesn’t implicitly endorse this worldview.

In the case of The Sign of the Beaver, Speare’s choice is very self-conscious. We know this through the story’s frequent references to Robinson Crusoe and the narrator’s self-reflection that his situation with Attean is essentially an inversion of the much older book. Speare presents Attean’s people as essentially perfect. They were inherently and universally good-natured. They know how to do *everything* in a better way than the white settlers. Their flaws are in the adoption of white technology (metal traps and guns.) Their tragedy – their decision to relocate – is brought on them by the arrival of white people. I had no problem with Speare’s choices in this novel, as they made sense, did not feel preachy, and were interesting. That said, I think the children’s literature industry has over-corrected for the biases of literature from earlier centuries, and has instead embraced the “noble savage” myth which in many ways is also racist, but a friendly-seeming and maternalistic form of racism. Instead of treating non-white people as evil and/or ignorant, as was too often done before, this view treats them as child-like, simple, primitively clever, and idealistically uncorrupted. Granting people a full range of dignity means you view them as capable of both good and evil, irrespective of your own involvement. The reality in the Americas is that Native peoples were sometimes good and fair, and sometimes they were not. Sometimes living off the land, in the Native way, had advantages. Sometimes living that way – even before the arrival of Europeans – was difficult and dangerous. I’d prefer that stories were more balanced.

I don’t know that you need to have this type of conversation with your children over this book specifically, but if the historical literature you feed you children is always signaling to them that “white people are always bad” (or alternatively that “white people are always good,”) then you might want to figure out how to discuss the issue. We need to live together and ingraining that type of one-sided message during their intellectual development might make doing so more difficult for them.

One thing I really enjoyed about the novel was Speare’s attention to detail regarding the hardships of frontier life. How does one stay warm during the winter? How does one get food without a gun or a metal hook for fishing? How do you identify which things that grow wild are safe to eat? What’s a good way to navigate through the woods without getting lost? We get to see Attean teach Matt a lot about how to live off the land, in the native way, and I found myself just as fascinated by the Native techniques as Matt was. I grew up using metal hooks for fishing and it never occurred to me how easy it would be to make a wooden one. I also found myself wanting to work out some of the food recipes that Matt picks up along the way for my future stew-making endeavors. On the other hand, I have absolutely no interest in trying to kill a charging bear with a bow and arrow. (This felt like a part of the novel where it might have been a good idea to point out, for the sake of providing balance, that European innovations were not all bad.)

I highly recommend this novel and I think any child of around 10 or above could ready it safely and without any issues. The book is short and well-paced. There is no bad language. The premise of a 12 year old being home alone for months on end is handled well. Probably the most difficult and sensitive moments in the story relate to animal hunting. Early in the book we encounter a fox trapped by its front leg and the boys leave it there to chew its own foot off or to be caught because the trap is on another tribe’s land and freeing it would come with repercussions. Later we see the boys kill a mother bear when it charged them. The mother bear left behind a now unattended cub. Overall, though, this is a very interesting 18th century historical fiction about hard work, friendship (and the openness to creating friendship), and survival in a less technological time. I enjoyed it a lot.