(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. The intended audience is surely adventurous boys. 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. I found it odd that a woman wrote the book.
The two big themes of the book are completing a task one has set before oneself, and loyalty to one's friends. 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. Written in the 1930s, this book has surprisingly little racist language. 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. The spend months cutting down trees, and when the streams rise with the spring thaws, Chris will plan to ship them down for sale. After Stuart leaves, Chris and his grandfather decide the venture is worth an attempt. He's an idea man, not one to complete a task. But Stuart is not one to follow through with things. No one has ever tried such a thing before.
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. 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.
Kind of an outlier in the Newbery canon, the two "boys" in this novel are 19 and 21 respectively.
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