The treasury of Newbery winners is vast and deep. One we recently enjoyed was Armstrong Sperry’s “Call It Courage,” which won the Newbery Medal in 1941. The story of Mafatu, a boy on the fictional Polynesian Island of Hikueru, is a hero’s journey. The son of the island’s chief, Tavana Nui, Mafatu brings shame to his family following tragic events that leave him terrified of the sea. Impoverished and surrounded by sea and hostile tribes, the men of the island must venture out to catch fish and defend the island.
Mafatu leaves home with his dog to overcome his fear. Through deprivation and danger, Mafatu perseveres in survival and returns to his father a hero.
Some contemporary readers are underwhelmed. Mafatu’s understandable distress on the sea, now deemed post-traumatic stress disorder, seems to be met with such chilling harshness. And yet, perhaps understanding and addressing emotional trauma is a luxury of civilization, a possibility when you know where your next meal is coming from.
Other people now fret about colonialism and antiquated understandings of native island cultures. Sperry is accused of failing to “respectfully” treat a tribe of men engaged in ritualistic cannibalism. One has to wonder: What is the “respectful” treatment of such barbarism? Is it really wrong to suggest that such a way of life is terrifying?
Despite all the criticism, what makes Sperry’s book worth reading? It is a primal tale of survival. It communicates a straightforward vision of heroism. This is a book that inspires.
Sperry, who was the third son of a New England family, traveled to the South Pacific after being inspired by fiction about it. In an acceptance speech for an award (well worth quoting at length), Sperry explained:
In my childhood I had read Melville, of course, and the South Sea stories of Stevenson and Jack London. From the very first those islands fired my imagination, and made me long to throw all my schoolbooks out the window and stow away on the first ship I could find that was sailing South. As the years passed, those childhood fancies were shelved and forgotten — but they didn’t die. And then one day I read a book by Frederick O’Brien and that brought them all to life again. The name of that book was White Shadows in the South Seas. I thought then, and I still think, that it is one of the most fascinating yarns I have ever read. I have heard learned scientists scoff at it. O’Brien, they said, was an Irishman with an Irishman’s imagination, who never let fact stand in the way of making a good story. Well — perhaps that is true. But I have learned this — there are things which the scientist has the gift to accomplish which remain forever beyond the reach of the artist. Yet the world which belongs to the artist is a world to which few scientists possess the key; it is the world which the artist shares, perhaps with children alone — the world of the imagination. If O’Brien didn’t always get his facts straight, and if his scientific observations were frequently faulty, he achieved something far beyond objective reporting. He had the power to recreate, through the medium of words, the spell that lies over the South Sea Islands — not the conventional picture of blazing beaches and swaying palms and tinkling music, but the feeling of the immense and overwhelming solitude which envelops those little island; of the quality of epic which still persists in the handful of natives who are left, and sings through them to this day in their chants and legends.
In all the handwringing about Sperry’s “outdated” treatment of other cultures, it is worth considering the remarkable linguistic and thematic parallels between “Call It Courage” and the 2016 animated film, “Moana.” Which manages to more accurately convey the essence of another culture and inspire respect for a way of life that we do not share?
Thinking about “Moana” after reading “Call It Courage” is akin to the experience of once having admired the cartoon dog Bluey’s dad as the embodiment of fatherly virtue before finding a truly heroic father. The contemporary examples are hollow simulacrums of the real thing.
While many people readers are coolly indifferent to the hair-raising episodes of storms on the sea, crafting a knife, fighting a shark, and surviving to one day return home, evidence of the excellence of “Call It Courage” can be found in what it has inspired. There is an audiobook version read by actor Lou Diamond Phillips that is masterful. The music will help to keep you on the edge of your seat.
As a final aside, one of the most surprising facts I found when reading about Armstrong Sperry was that “Sperries,” the still-popular, preppy boat shoes ubiquitous in suburban private schools originated in Armstrong Sperry’s family. Armstrong’s older brother, Paul, designed boat shoes. According to an old post on the Sperry website, Paul Sperry, an avid sailor, noticed that his dog did not slip on the wet deck because of the hundreds of cracks on his paws. This, apparently, is the inspiration for the shoe. That is a family I would like to know more about: a world-traveling storyteller and an innovative water-going shoe designer. They must have been interesting an interesting family!
