Barred from his family home-stead by his mean-spirited uncle, eighteen-year-old Chris weathers a Minnesota winter in a small cabin with his grandfather. Poverty and the tempting stories of a wandering Easterner convince Chris to harvest the trees on his grandfather's land and float the logs down the spring floodwaters of the Mississippi to the lumber mills in Saint Louis. Filled with stories of raft hands and river pilots, this fast-paced novel has all the momentum of the great Mississippi.

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Kind of an outlier in the Newbery canon, the two "boys" in this novel are 19 and 21 respectively. Set in the early 1800s, by chance, Chris meets Stuart while he is out harvesting hay in a meadow in the far north of the Louisiana Territory. Stuart tells Chris that he has an idea of cutting down trees up there, then floating them down river to the Mississippi and on to St. Louis to sell for shipbuilding. No one has ever tried such a thing before. But Stuart is not one to follow through with things. He's an idea man, not one to complete a task. After Stuart leaves, Chris and his grandfather decide the venture is worth an attempt. The spend months cutting down trees, and when the streams rise with the spring thaws, Chris will plan to ship them down for sale. In the course of the venture, Chris meets a wide variety of men, good and bad, but always keeps his eyes set on completing the difficult task before him.
Written in the 1930s, this book has surprisingly little racist language. The Native Americans are naturally referred to as Indians, and one character, Pierre Dumenille is referred to a couple of times as a "half-breed," but since he is one of the distinct heroes of the story, the term should be blamed on the language used in the 1930s rather than any sort of derogatory statement.
The two big themes of the book are completing a task one has set before oneself, and loyalty to one's friends.
I found it odd that a woman wrote the book. Apart from a female cousin of Chris's who has a minor role in the beginning of the book, there are no women characters at all. The intended audience is surely adventurous boys.
(Side note: The particular edition I have has a preposterous cover that shows Chris rafting down the river wearing what appears to be 1990s era clothing, and poling his raft along by shoving his pole straight down in front of the raft instead of to the side. Ridiculous cover. I assume the publisher was trying to lure in readers reluctant to tackle a historical novel. Glad to see the current edition has more appropriate artwork on the cover.) ( )

i read this book its such a great book i loved it and a wanted too read it all night long!!!!!! ( )