In this month’s selection, the 1953 title “The Light in the Forest” by Conrad Richter, we read about how Native Americans sometimes kidnapped white children to replace their own children who died and then truly adopted them into the tribe.  True Son, born John Butler was taken at age 4 to replace a Native son who died.  But as part of a treaty, after 11 years True Son is reluctantly returned to his White birth family.  

This title was frequently assigned reading for school children in the 1960s and some of our group had read it then.  Some of our readers felt the characters weren’t complex or developed enough but that could have been because middle schoolers are the target age audience for this title. Richter seemed to provide a balanced view of the situation as opposed to many other writers from that time period, as his writing is more sympathetic to the native population than the white settlers. 

We are left to wonder what will happen to True Son, as he couldn’t/didn’t want to reintegrate with his birth/white family and he was not welcomed back to his Native family as the book ends.   Where will he go?  One in our group speculated that he heads West or/and becomes a survivalist as he has the skills to live on the land.