Background and
Summary
Written by
Armstrong Sperry, Call It Courage was
first published in 1940 and earned a Newbery Medal in 1941. This story takes place on several small islands in
the South Seas many years ago when the natives were the only inhabitants of the
island and no missionaries or traders had arrived yet. The book opens on the
island of Hikueru and tells the tale of Mafatu, who is known as “the Boy Who
Was Afraid” in much of the story. The first chapter takes you back to the time
when Mafatu is just three years old, and he and his mother search for sea
urchins out on the barrier reef. As they turn their canoe towards home, a
current sets in and carries them into the outer ocean where they struggle all
night through the ocean storm. By morning, they lose the canoe and Mafatu
clings to his mother’s neck while watching sharks circle in the distance. With
a last effort, his mother makes it to another island and drags Mafatu ashore
before she dies.
Twelve
years later, at age fifteen, Mafatu still cannot overcome his terrible fear of
the sea and the terrible sea god, Moana. His father, the Great Chief of Hikueru,
had named Mafatu, Stout Heart, but Mafatu does not live up to his name. The
girls on the island laugh at him, and the boys exclude him from their games.
His attempts to sail out with the fishermen always end in disaster, so he is
forced to stay behind making spears, nets, or shark lines for the other boys to
use.
One day
Mafatu reaches the point where he decides that he must prove his courage to
himself and to the others, or he can no longer live in their midst. He must
face Moana, the sea god, and conquer him. After gathering a few supplies,
Mafatu sails off to find a distant island. After barely surviving a storm and
losing his canoe in the reef, he finally makes it to shore.
Once Mafatu
has found land, he first explores his surroundings. Though he does not find any
other inhabitants on the island, he does find an idol, which tells Mafatu that
this island is a Forbidden Island where people known as the eaters-of-men make
their terrible sacrifices to the idol. These cannibals are Mafatu’s greatest
fear, so every day he climbs a mountain to see if the eaters-of-men are coming.
After
exploring the island, Mafatu must learn how to survive on his own. He first
builds a fire and gathers some breadfruit and bananas from the island. Next, he
weaves leaves from a coconut tree into a shelter. Throughout the next few weeks,
Mafatu establishes a good routine. Every day he checks for the eaters-of-men
and works on building himself a new canoe so he can sail home. In addition, he
builds himself knives, fishhooks, darts, and spears when he finds the skeleton
of a whale, and he builds a bamboo trap to catch fish.
On the
island, Mafatu faces and overcomes several challenges. First, a hammerhead
shark keeps breaking into his bamboo trap, so Mafatu kills the shark. Next, he
hunts and kills a wild boar. Finally, he narrowly escapes the eaters-of-men. After
overcoming these challenges and sailing home to Hikueru, Mafutu has earned his
name, Mafatu, Stout Heart.
Gender/Age Interest
Level for This Novel
This book
would appeal most to boys, but girls would enjoy it as well. Boys would enjoy
the adventure and action in the story, and girls would enjoy the internal
struggle of Mafatu overcoming his fear.
This book is recommended for readers eight to twelve years
old because the book contains just five short chapters as well as creative
illustrations. However, older readers would enjoy this book as well because the
overall tone and language is formal and imaginative.
Using This Book as a
Tool for Developing Mature Readers
This book deals with several tasks that young people face as
they mature into adults. First, Mafatu comes to terms with his physical body
and discovers his gender role in his society. At the beginning of the book,
Mafatu is a fearful young boy. Although he lives on an island, he spends his
time away from the water working with his hands to mend nets or make hooks.
When he travels to the distant island, Mafatu uses his skills as well as
physical strength to overcome challenges such as the shark and boar. By the end
of the book, he has accepted his gender role, that of a courageous leader. The
book presents this task in a positive way as Mafatu learns to be creative and
use the resources around him to survive. Students can learn from Mafatu’s
example of hard work and courage.
Not only
does Mafatu come to terms with his physical body and discover his gender role,
he also grows independent from his parents. When the book begins, Mafatu
relives the instance when his mother died in a sea storm. His father, the
island chief, is still alive but wants Mafatu to be a brave leader, not a
fearful young boy. When Mafatu takes a canoe and sails alone to a distant
island, he must build himself a shelter, find food, and build a canoe to get
back home. Here he proves himself capable of surviving without his parents, but
students can discuss if it was truly necessary for Mafatu to sail to a distant
island to prove his courage to his father.
The final
task Mafatu faces is gaining a sense of achievement. At the beginning of the
book, he is known by his few friends and everyone on the island as a coward. Some
students may relate to this feeling of not fitting in with everyone else. Although
Mafatu tries to overcome his fear of the sea, he fails. When he sails away on
his own, he is forced to overcome his fear to survive. On this island, Mafatu
finally gains a sense of achievement. He kills both a shark and a boar, builds
a canoe, and escapes the people-eaters to return to Hikueru. When he returns
home, he has overcome his fear and earned his name, Mafatu, the Stout Heart. Students
may be inspired by this story of Mafatu’s determination and courage.
Potential Issues With
This Book
While this
book tells a great story of overcoming fear and finding courage, it also has
several issues. First, Mafatu believes in many gods. For example, he frequently
mentions “Moana, the sea god” or “Maui, god of the fishermen.” He feels as if
he escaped Moana when he survived the storm as a young child, but he thinks
that Moana is still trying to kill him. On the flip side, the god “Maui” is a
good god, and Mafatu offers prayers to him.
Not only
does Mafatu pray to false gods, he also encounters idol worship on the island
by a group of people referred to as the “eaters-of-men.” When exploring the
island for the first time, Mafatu finds a tall idol with bones lying around the
base of the idol. Mafatu understands that the eaters-of-men, cannibals, make
their sacrifices to this idol on the island.
These ideas of human sacrifice, idol worship, and praying to
false gods are wrong. The Bible is clear that there is only one true God. Psalm
135:15-17 says, “The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of
men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see
not; They have ears, but they hear not; neither is there any breath in their
mouths.” Students should be aware as they read this book that Mafatu’s gods can
neither hear nor respond to his prayers.
Recommendation
This book would
be beneficial both for the whole class and individual readers. Because of the
short length and good chapter breaks, a teacher could read this book aloud to
the class. Students would also benefit from reading this book in small groups
or on their own. Many young people struggle with fear or feeling like they do
not fit in, and this book shows the courage of a young boy in overcoming his
fears. Young students need examples like Mafatu to learn how to overcome their
own fears and challenges.
In addition, the book does include some interesting history
and geography of the Polynesian people and culture. Students could benefit from
learning about people who lived long ago and ways that their lives would be
different from ours today.
Resources for
Teaching or Research on the Novel
Several
websites would be helpful in teaching this novel. One particular website that
could be helpful for teachers is Web English. This site offers a variety of
information for teachers such as a summary, analysis, discussion questions, and
writing topics. It also provides comprehension questions, follow-up activities,
and vocabulary to use in lesson plans. Another page, Book Units Teacher,
provides a sample unit plan made by a teacher to use with the book. This plan
includes vocabulary, reading and comprehension quizzes, and a list of extra
activities for each chapter. The teacher also lists the page numbers for the
vocabulary words and provides sample quizzes and tests. A third website that
could be helpful is Book Rags. This site details the plot summary, chapters,
characters, objects, places, themes, style, and quotes. To view the entire
study guide, one must pay a fee, but this site offers good details and credible
information about the book so would be beneficial.
Strategies for
Teaching Reading with This Novel
Several
strategies can be used to teach reading with this book. Students reading this
book should be developing reading comprehension skills meaning they not only
read the words on the page but also see how the story fits together. The
website Reading Rockets offers several strategies to improve students’ reading
comprehension. First, graphic organizers such as Venn-diagrams or story maps
can help students focus on certain concepts and how they are related to other
concepts. For this particular book, students could make a story map on the
setting. Not only are graphic organizers useful, answering questions can also
improve reading comprehension. The Reading Rockets website shared that
questions “give students a purpose for reading and help students to think
actively as they read.” Not all questions are the same. Some questions can be
found directly from the text, while others require students’ prior knowledge
and experience. For example, one question might ask the name of Mafatu’s dog,
while a deeper question might ask how the student would feel if he were in
Mafatu’s place. These strategies can help teachers develop reading
comprehension.
Not only
will students develop better reading comprehension from this book, they will
also expand their vocabulary. Again, Reading Rockets offers several activities
to teach new vocabulary. For example, illustrate the new words as much as
possible. You can do this by showing pictures or having the students draw
something themselves. Another activity could be “vocabulary charades,” where
the students act out the new word. When testing new vocabulary, it is helpful
to start with fill-in-the-blank exercises and then to teach students to compose
their own sentences using the new words.
Works Cited
Adler, C. "Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text
Comprehension." Reading Rockets. 1 Nov.
2007. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
"Armstrong Sperry: Lesson Plans and Ideas for Teaching Call It Courage." Web English Teacher. 17 July 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
"Call It Courage
Lesson Plans for Teachers." Book Rags. 2015. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
Miller, Gay. "A Resource to Use with Call It Courage." Book Units
Teacher. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr.
2015.
Sperry, Armstrong. Call It Courage. New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1940. Print.
