The Willow Whistle
by Cornelia Meigs
c. 1931

It seems all the good ones are written before say, 1949...ever notice that?! Often I use the publishing or copywrite date to help decide if we should read the book or not. "The Willow Whistle" by Cornelia Meigs is an excellent work of fiction. It's characters seem so real and the twists in the plot really keep the reader's interest. It is a story of a small group of families on the frontier when our nation was young trying to understand and interact positively with the Indians. The Indians and the Settlers have ways that are very different and often have trouble understanding one another, but keep trying. An unusual Indian custom leads to quite an adventure away from her family for one of the main characters, Mary Anne. Then the community decides it needs to build a school for it's children, and one of the other main characters, Eric, has an adventure of his own! We love this story and highly recommend it.