The Sign of the Beaver: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

Elizabeth George Speare

Apr 1983 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

A 1984 Newbery Honor Book

Although he faces responsibility bravely, thirteen-year-old Matt is more than a little apprehensive when his father leaves him alone to guard their new cabin in the wilderness. When a renegade white stranger steals his gun, Matt realizes he has no way to shoot game or to protect himself. 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 between settlers and natives in the 1700s. Now with an introduction by Joseph Bruchac.

Ratings and reviews

I read this book for the first time when I was in the third grade--shortly after my parents divorced. More than 25 years later, I am amazed at the impression this book made on me at a critical time in my life. It sounds corny even as I write it, but it taught me that even if your father isn't around, you can still learn the things you need to know to be a man.

I'm 10 and my teacher and my classmates read it and I think is funny,cool,sad,and it's filled with adventurers and these two characters help each other in the end as the become friends instead of still being enemys.I think every body liked it as well as the movie ☺

this is a historicall fiction novel that we read in school. It is a bit too realistic for my taste, but that is just me. It is a pretty good book, and satisfies my interest in native americans. I dont want to be a spoiler, but in the end, matt choses to stay home and wait for his parents instead of going with the indians to hunt, and I would have found it more interesting the other way around. also do not see the need for the charactor ben, as he only showes up once in the whole book. I also feel that the story could have been longer, and ended too early.

About the author

"I was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, on November 21, 1908. I have lived all my life in New England, and though I love to travel I can't imagine ever calling any other place on earth home. Since I can't remember a time when I didn't intend to write, it is hard to explain why I took so long getting around to it in earnest. But the years seemed to go by very quickly. In 1936 I married Alden Speare and came to Connecticut. Not till both children were in junior high did I find time at last to sit down quietly with a pencil and paper. I turned naturally to the things which had filled my days and thoughts and began to write magazine articles about family living. Then one day I stumbled on a true story from New England history with a character who seemed to me an ideal heroine. Though I had my first historical novel almost by accident it soon proved to be an absorbing hobby." 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. 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.