Spoiler-free summary: Sarah Noble is an eight-year old girl who accompanies her father into the wilds of colonial Connecticut where he will build the family a new home. She is afraid of wild animals and of Native Americans, but she repeats a mantra of needing to have courage. A book aimed for elementary-aged readers, it’s brief and not very fun.
Discussion: A book published in 1954 with that title made me nervous — how offensive was this going to be about Native Americans? Some go with Indians-as-a-boogeyman, others go Noble Savage. This fell more in the latter camp, although Tall John’s family is portrayed more as just another family than I would have expected.
Really, though, there’s not much to say on this one beyond the summary. It’s a chapter book aimed at elementary kids, so there was never going to be a lot of depth here. Still, though, it’s not even particularly fun — Sarah Noble is afraid of things happening, but nothing actually does happen.
Next up is some nonfiction: The Railroad to Freedom by Hildegarde Swift about Harriet Tubman.
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