CALICO BUSH by Rachel Field, illustrated with wood engravings by Allen Lewis, Macmillan Publishing, 1931, 1966, paperback, 201 pages, $4.99.

Though first published as juvenile fiction in 1931, “Calico Bush” is a timeless tale for all ages.

It is the story of Marguerite Ledoux, a 1743 French immigrant who is stranded in the New World. On the ocean voyage to this country, her uncle and several others die from a disease contracted aboard ship. Fearing spread of the disease, the captain of the ship forces his passengers, including Marguerite and her grandmother, to get off at Marblehead, Mass.

Originally bound for New France, Marguerite and grandmere find themselves on a strange shore with only the clothes on their backs and very little money. Soon Grandmere also takes ill and dies while at the Poor Farm. All alone and unable to support herself, French-speaking Marguerite winds up being sold in bondage to an English-speaking family who were soon to leave for an island off the coast of Maine somewhere near Mount Desert Island.

The historical fiction relays with accuracy and sensitivity the relationship between Marguerite and the family to whom she is bound. According to a 1942 publication, Rachel Field “touches on feelings not frequently dealt with in a book for girls.”

Given the issues dealt with in a book written more than six decades ago, the enlightened views on diversity and multiculturism featured in “Calico Bush” are phenomenal. Field was a woman writing about language and cultural differences long before they were considered important issues.

As testament to her writing ability, Rachel Field was the first woman ever to be awarded the Newberry Medal, for her book “Hitty, The First Hundred Years.” The setting of “Calico Bush” in Maine also benefited from the four months out of the year that Field spent on Sutton Island off the coast of Maine.

Field writes deeply and in an enlightened manner about the nuances of the cultures, and the subsequent conflicts between the cultures as well as the Maine coastal landscape. More importantly, she writes a story of a girl’s bravery in facing the adversities of being a pioneer of the Maine coast. She offers to the reader, in both French and English, the essences of the rituals of each culture, alongside the takeover of the land which belonged to the natives, with a sensitivity to all peoples involved in this struggle of New World settlers and natives.

With deft pen, Field sympathizes, and accurately portrays the way in which some of the new settlers successfully attained a compromise with the natives. The turning point in the book is when Marguerite, lonely for her culture, language and customs, goes out into the woods by herself and has an encounter with a passing American Indian. Later in the book, this encounter proves to be the deed which spares the entire family.

Field writes for her audience of young people, particularly adolescent girls, in a way that inspires a strong coming-of-age story.

I recommend this book for pleasure and classroom reading for young people, parents and teachers. This book is one I wish I had known about in my adolescent years because of the attention it gives to Marguerite, a French girl who eventually makes a home of a land that was initially strange and foreign to her.