The Sign of the Beaver

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Description: When his father returns East to collect the rest of the family, 13-year-old Matt is left alone to guard his family's newly built homestead. One day, Matt is brutally stung when he robs a bee tree for honey. He returns to consciousness to discover that his many stings have been treated by an old Native American and his grandson. Matt offers his only book as thanks, but the old man instead asks Matt to teach his grandson Attean to read. Both boys are suspicious, but Attean comes each day for his lesson. In the mornings, Matt tries to entice Attean with tales from Robinson Crusoe, while in the afternoons, Attean teaches Matt about wilderness survival and Native American culture. The boys become friends in spite of themselves, and their inevitable parting is a moving tribute to the ability of shared experience to overcome prejudice. The Sign of the Beaver was a Newbery Honor Book; author Elizabeth Speare has also won the Newbery Medal twice, for The Witch of Blackbird Pond and The Bronze Bow. (Ages 12 and older) --Richard Farr

Genre: History - General; Survival; Frontier and pioneer life; Children's Books/Ages 9-12 Fiction; Juvenile Nonfiction; Children: Grades 4-6; Indians of North America; Historical - United States - Colonial; Action and Adventure - General; Juvenile Fiction / Historical / United States / Colonial and Revolutionary Periods; Children's 9-12 - Fiction - Historical; Fiction; Action and Adventure;

Average Review: 4 stars

Review: The choice : This book is about A boy named Matt who builds a cabin with his father and then his father leaves him alone to pick up the rest of his family. Now Matt is alone and puts marks by every day that passes.Then Matt meets an indian named attean and they become friends. Now Matt is teaching Attean to read and write and Attean is teaching Matt how to survive on his own. then time goes by and his dad never returned so Ateean is asking Matt to head north with the beaver tribe and Matt does not know if he should go with Attean or wait for his father.