The Sign of the Beaver: Elizabeth George Speare

Chapter Book
I read this book because it was one of the ones that the classroom I’m observing in read. The students were really excited about this book and she read it aloud to the class. The book is about a young boy, Matt, who builds a cabin with his father in Maine. His father returns home to fetch his mother and siblings. Matt is told to wait at the cabin until his father comes, and he works and keeps up the land while he waits. After a traumatizing experience, he meets members of the Beaver tribe and becomes friends with them. He is asked if he wants to join them and move further north, leaving his cabin behind. This is difficult because his family is very late, and he is unsure if they will ever be able to make it to the cabin. He decides to wait for his family and eventually they make it back to the cabin and reunite. He plans to tell them of Attean and how his life is forever changed because of his friend. I think this book can be used when discussing this time in history, with the expansion of the colonies, the diseases present at the time, and show the everlasting power of friendship among those who aren’t alike. I also think that the fact that the boys are from completely different cultures and still find ways to be friends shows that we can all work together to make a better world, therefore enforcing ideas of cultural awareness and diversity among your classroom.