The Sign of the Beaver

The Sign of the Beaver is an outstanding story that students can relate to and it has great literary merit. It has won several awards including a Newbery Honor, ALA Best Book for Young Adults, Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction and the New York Times Best Book of the Year. This book is fairly easy to read so it can be used as a novel study for all students or read aloud in the classroom. There are several themes that can be explored: survival, friendship, fear, and courage, pride, gender roles, communication, and initiation.

The story is set early summer of 1768, Matt Hallowell and his father take a journey into the wilderness of the Maine territory to establish a homestead. His father returns to Quincy, Massachusetts to fetch Matt's mother and sister. This trip is supposed to take six weeks, and Matt is left alone to guard the house. One day he is almost killed by a swarm of bees, but is rescued by Chief Saknis, a Penobscot Indian, and his grandson, Attean. To repay Saknis for saving his life, Matt agrees to teach Attean to read English. At the same time, Matt is learning to become a skilled hunter from Attean. When his father and the family don’t return after several months because of illness, Saknis offers to adopt Matt and take him north with the tribe as it moves to new hunting grounds. Matt knows that he would be proud to be Attean's brother, but he also knows he must wait for his own family.