Call It Courage

Call It Courage is a children's novel by the American writer Armstrong Sperry, published in 1940 and set among the islands of the Pacific. In Britain it appeared as The Boy Who Was Afraid.

Mafatu is the son of Tavana Nui, the Great Chief of Hikueru, and his island's whole culture is built on the sea: its people sail and fish and trade, and they measure a boy by what he dares. Mafatu's fear dates from the day his mother died in the water beside him, and it has made him the target of the other boys and a disappointment to his father. At fifteen he takes a dugout canoe and puts out with no plan beyond proving himself, is caught in a storm and loses the canoe, and comes ashore on an island with only his dog Uri and an albatross called Kivi for company. The rest of the book is the account of how he keeps himself alive there, and of what he finds on the island that makes survival more urgent still.

The story stays close to practical work, to shelter and fire and fish, and to the fear Mafatu has to live beside while he does it.