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.

This book has been graded for interest at 9-12 years.

There are 135 pages in this book. This book was published 2011 by Cengage Learning, Inc .

Elizabeth George Speare was born on November 21, 1908, in Melrose, Massachusetts. Among her wonderful works are two Newbery Awardwinning novels, The Witch of Blackbird Pond and The Bronze Bow . In 1989 she was given the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for her substantial and enduring contribution to children's literature. Elizabeth George Speare died in 1994.