Dalgliesh, Alice The Courage of Sarah Noble illustrated by Leonard Weisgard Macmillan, 1954, 1991 55 pages, b/w line drawings grades 2-3

Sarah Noble is eight years old in 1707, and living in Westfield, Massachusetts. Her father is going to the "wilderness," to put up the first house in what will be New Milford, Connecticut, and Sarah is going with him, to cook. "Keep up your courage," her mother says, "Keep up your courage, Sarah Noble." And she finds much to be courageous about—the strange sound that is the call of an owl, a fox calling to his mate, the howl of a wolf—John Noble has his musket ready for that one—and most of all, Indians

"'The Indians will eat you," Lemuel said and smacked his lips loudly. 'They will chop off your head,' little Robert added, with a wide innocent smile...'They will skin you alive...' That was Lemuel."

Sarah is greatly afraid, even though her father has told her that these are "good Indians." When they reach their destination, Sarah and her father set up housekeeping in a cave, until the house can be built.

Chapter five is entitled "Indians!" And here they do arrive—a bunch of little kids. "Sarah kept still as a rabbit in danger. The children came in, creeping nearer, creeping nearer, like small brown field mice..." Sarah is shocked to see that they are naked, "unless you could call that one small piece of cloth 'clothing.'" However, they turn out to be friendly, so all goes pretty well until it is time for John Noble to go back for the rest of his family. He tells Sarah that she is going to stay with "Tall John," father of two of the children she especially likes. "You have been brave," John Noble says, "and now you will have to be braver." "'You mean I am to live with the Indians?'" (Italics in the text.) Once she gets over that, Sarah starts to worry about the "Indians from the North," of whom even "Tall John" is afraid. But none of Sarah's fears are realized, and her family arrives safely.

There are a few problems with this book. The author tells us that "This is a true story, though I have had to imagine many of the details," and that might be part of it. It seems pretty unlikely that a child living anywhere in what would become New England in 1707—except maybe Boston—would be unfamiliar with owls, foxes, even wolves. And contrary to the mythology, there is no documented case of any human ever having been attacked by a wolf in North America. At this time, well away from any white settlements, that "one small piece of cloth" the little kids are wearing would have been hide—if it was anything at all. At one point, John Noble says, speaking about a piece of land, "The Indians have cleared it for a hunting ground." Now, I am trying to imagine how this would work. Did they just go out there and stand, and wait for something to go through, or what?

Such things simply indicate that the author saw no need to look into anything beyond what she already "knew" of the time period. On the other hand, the air of menace throughout the book is nearly tangible. The forest is always "The Wilderness." The trees are "angry dark trees" that

"seemed to stand in their path...trees dark and fearful, trees crowding against each other, trees on and on, more trees and more trees. Behind the trees there were men moving...were they Indians?"

And it is in the Native people that the heart of the menace and strangeness lies. Although in fact nothing ever endangers this child, neither the animals nor the people, and there is never any need for all this courage, the author carries it to the very end. Having—finally—gotten it, that "these Indians are our friends," Sarah tells her doll, "...and they will tell us if the Indians from the north are coming...Keep up your courage, Arabella, keep up your courage." Although "Tall John" has become a friend, and Sarah has played many times with his children, when it comes time for her to stay with them, there is fear. John Noble worries, "Am I doing right to leave her?" Sarah

was not saying anything, but her mind...was making pictures, trees...trees...dark trees...narrow paths through the forest...wolves...bears. Suppose her father never came back and she had to live with the Indians all her life?

As for the people themselves, we never see how they live. Although there are many children, there are no adults beyond "Tall John" and his wife. Where are the families, the band, the encampment, or village? The people have no nation, the are just "the Indians." From this book, one would never know that they had a way of life, societal structure, and economy. In the illustrations, there are two distant views of one dwelling only, the "Indian house," but we never see inside. Much is made of Native names: "There is a tall Indian who...will help me. I cannot say his name, so I will call him "Tall John." Sarah "could not say the long, long names of the children, so she called the boy Small John and the girl Mary." And on her first night in their home, she is faced with a dilemma: "Now she really had to stop and think. Was it right to pray for Indians? Did the Lord take care of Indians?"

Dalgliesh called her book a "story of faith and courage and friendship." Possibly that was her intent. Friendship does not call people out of their names just because they are unfamiliar. Friendship does not doubt the safety of a child with people who have shown you nothing but kindness. Friendship does not wonder if people are human enough to pray for. If words and pictures show people only as creatures of the wild, that is how children will think of them, no matter how much you speak of friendship. If there is something fearful about them, even after months of relationship, if you say their names are impossible, and slap other names on them—any old ones will do—and nobody objects, if you show nothing of their lives, then they have no identity that children can understand, no reality as human beings.

The subtext of The Courage of Sarah Noble is the same story that we have heard for 500 years. Indians were/are primitive—wild. When not outright savage, Native peoples still have more in common with the creatures of the Earth and the birds of the air, than with the culturally and technologically superior Europeans. They aren't "civilized." And therefore no obstacle. This message is the one underlying everything children have been taught about indigenous peoples, not just in the Americas, but around the world, and it comes through in this book—loud and clear.

In fact, as a little research will quite clearly substantiate, we were—and are—hundreds of separate nations—all with certain things in common, such as belief in the Creator, relationship with all things, and the sanctity of Earth and all life—but also, all varying greatly from one to another, in appearance and lifeways. Nothing was "wilderness." This was—and is—our home, and we belong to it deeply, in a way few non-Native people seem to understand. Some of us had "civilizations" as complex, if not more so, as anything the old world ever produced. (We also considered personal hygiene to be pretty important—something which records of the time indicate the colonists had yet to discover.) But it is always a mistake to judge any people solely on aspects of material culture. Native understanding of the web of life was sophisticated, with a spiritual connection to all creation that has yet to be equaled by any non-indigenous people, something that all must now learn—or else perish.

I am picturing the use of this book in a classroom situation, and I know what will happen, because I have been there. The white kids—at least those who are well-to-do—will be reinforced in their sense of entitlement and superiority to everybody else in the world. The poor kids will discover that there is someone they can look down on, too. They will all make fun of the Indian kids (not in front of the teacher, maybe, although I have seen that, too). The Native kids will be shamed—one more time.

The usual defense for a book of this nature, is that we must understand it as a product of its time. This is true. The Courage of Sarah Noble was published in 1954, and it is very much a product of is time—a time that has come and gone. In a world where our divisiveness threatens the very existence of all human beings, of all life, there is no room, and no time, for such a story. I would give a child no book, rather than this nasty little thing—and I'm damn sure I don't want my kids reading it.

—Doris Seale