“True Son,” born John Butler in a frontier town, was captured by Lenni Lenape Indians when he was four years old, and adopted by a great warrior who re-named him and raised him as his own. When the Indians make a treaty and agree to return all white captives to their own people, True Son is sent away from his family and friends to live with the white men he has learned to hate. Uncomfortable with the ways of the white man and longing for home, he eventually returns to his tribe, only to find that he no longer thinks exactly like them either. Instead he discovers that he is an outcast in both worlds because he understands and defends both. Unlike the Disney film based on it, this book does not have a happy ending.
Reading level: age 10-13 years