Call It Courage

The answer to these questions can be found on p. 13 of Call It Courage. Mafatu’s closest companions were two animals, a dog and an albatross. He made them his friends because they were different,...

It isn't spelled out exactly what happens to Mafatu at the end of Call it Courage. All we know for sure are two things: First of all, that he faints into the arms of his father, Tavana Nui, after...

Mafatu wants to kill the wild boar first of all because he is hungry, and second, because he wants to feel the pride and glory of having killed such a formidable beast all by himself. As Mafatu is...

Encountering the shark provides Mafatu with another opportunity to prove his manhood, to show his people that his reputation for cowardice and timidity is ill-deserved. But his initial motivation...

Mafatu is the protagonist and primary character in Call it Courage, by Armstrong Perry. Mafatu lives on Hikeuru Island but is afraid of the sea because he saw his mother drown; this causes him to...

In his fish trap, Mafatu finally finds "three lobsters, blue-green and fat".Mafatu had caught fish in his trap before, but more often than not, his catch had been stolen by a marauding...

The time setting of "Call it Courage" by Armstrong Sperry is not specific. The reader is told that the story takes place in ancient times, but that is a super broad time frame unfortunately. The...

To some extent, the answer to this question depends on what you mean by the word “does.” There is one answer if you say that “does” refers only to physical actions and another answer if you say...

Mafatu's name means "Stout Heart". In the Polynesian village of Hikueru where Mafatu lives, the people worship courage. It is with pride that Tavana Nui, the Great Chief of the tribe, christens...

In this chapter he is ready to build his canoe. He has kept his fire going overnight in a cave. He cooks his breakfast in the fire and then starts to look for wood for his canoe.

It is the season of storms, and Mafatu is well aware of this as he starts his journey to the foreign lands, away from Hikueru, to face his fears. In this journey, he is accompanied by his two pets,...

The answer to this can be found on page 44 of my copy of Call It Courage. This is relatively early in Chapter 3 while Mafatu is exploring the island on which he has landed. He vows to Maui that...

The name Mafatu means "stout heart." Unfortunately for the young lad, this turns out to be something of a misnomer. Early in his life, Mafatu gains the reputation of being a bit of a scaredy-cat....

When you ask about “problems” in Call It Courage, I assume that you are asking about the conflicts within the story. Every story is built on some sort of conflict that must be resolved. We...

Mafatu does not have much time to do things for fun on the island, as he has a lot of work to do to ensure his survival and prepare to journey back to his home. He does take the opportunity to do...

In chapter four of Call it Courage, Mafatu begins to make various tools to help with his survival. He finds a whale bone and carves it into a knife. He is happy he has spent so much time in his...

Tavana Nui is the Great Chief of the Hikueru, and Mafatu’s father. His silence shames Mafatu, because the boy knows that it signifies his disappointment in his cowardice. Mafatu knows that his...

Mafatu's mother's final action upon finally reaching shore was to reach for a cracked coconut and "to press the cool, sustaining meat to her child's lips before she died". Three-year-old...

We can see the answer to this in Chapter 4 of Call It Courage. In that chapter, Mafatu is excited to find the skeleton of the whale because it will provide him with the raw materials that he needs...

In this chapter, Mafatu eats three things. He eats mangoes, breadfruit, and bananas. At the beginning of the chapter, Mafatu has been washed up on the shore of the island and is very sore and...

Uri, Mafatu's faithful dog and dear friend, consistently shows his loyalty to Mafatu throughout the novel. Uri chooses to stay right next to Mafatu's side for the duration of the story. He serves...

In Call It Courage, we can see what Mafatu comes to think of all the tasks that he did on Hikueru on page 56. That is the second page of Chapter 4. The answer is that Mafatu comes to be grateful...

The author sets the scene by stating that Mafatu’s attention is caught by an old and hideous idol on top of a tall pyramid. The idol’s longevity is highlighted by its corrosion and the fact that it...

Mafatu overcomes a number of obstacles in the book. He endures the storm by drawing strength from the god Maui, his dog, and the albatross. He "forces himself to do something dreaded"...

In Call it Courage, Mafatu and his mother first reach land by being washed ashore by the terrible storm. Mafatu believes that the sea god is watching over them and taking them to shore while this...

The answer to the first part of this question can be found on p. 9 of Call It Courage. The island on which Mafatu and his mother washed up was called Tekoto. This happened when he was only three...

Mafatu finds a spearhead in the Sacred Place. When Mafatu discovers the Sacred Place, he sees "a series of wide stone terraces rising in a pyramid many feet high; on top of this pyramid a...

To find lots of details for yourself, look at the point in Chapter 2 when Mafatu first sees the island. Then look at the point in Chapter 3 right after he wakes up on the island and finds that...

In Call It Courage, Mafatu had a great fear of the sea. The reason is because his mother was killed while out at sea. A hurricane destroyed his mother's boat, and she ultimately died. Mafatu...

The answer to this forms the basis of this entire story. The answer can be found early in the book, on p. 18 in my copy. There, Mafatu makes a vow to himself. If he could win his way to a...

Mafatu forms a firm bond of friendship with Kivi, the albatross. He sees something of himself in the bird: a misfit who finds himself isolated from the other birds, bullied by them in much the same...

The answer to this is that Kivi is the one who appears when Mafatu is ready to die bravely like Uri. Kivi is an albatross. We find out early in the book (p. 13 in my edition) that Mafatu found...

The answer to this can be found on the second page of Chapter 5. There, we are told, "But he had to know, he had to know..." Mafatu has been fascinated in a horrible way by the Sacred Place...

It's really a combination of both. Mafatu must overcome his own deep-seated fears—fears of the ocean, fears of being a failure, and fears of being regarded as a coward by his own people—if he's to...

As well as needing to kill the wild boar because he's hungry, Mafatu's also desperate to prove his bravery, to prove that he's a man and not a boy. In doing so, he will seek to emulate the...

I find it hard to believe that this question is correct. I really do not think that Mafatu ever does let his fire die out. I say this because I do not remember any place where that happens and I...

From the picture that you have included here, it is clear that you are asking about Chapter 3 of Call It Courage. In that chapter, the first clue that warns Mafatu that people have been on the...

In Call It Courage, the people of Hikueru do not literally “drive Mafatu forth.” That is, they do not actively and intentionally force him to leave the island. They do not come after him with...

An omniscient third person narrator tells the story of the young Mafutu. (An ominscient narrator is one who knows the thoughts and motivations of his characters). We know that it is an omniscient...

On page 6, the author states that "Mafatu" means "stout heart" in Polynesian. Mafatu's father gave him this name expecting him, as the son of the Great Chief of Hikueru, to make him proud with his...

When Mafatu sees the wild boar in the jungle on the island, he recalls when his grandfather killed a boar and made a necklace from the teeth of the animal. The necklace symbolizes his grandfather's...

Armstrong Sperry's Call It Courage is set in the Pacific Islands and tells the story of Mafatu, a chief's son who has a terrible fear of the sea and must fight to overcome it. When he is three...

In Call It Courage, the protagonist, Mafatu, faces many dangers. None of these dangers, however, is really his main antagonist. Even though we are told at the beginning of the book that the sea...

Breadfruit is a kind of tropical fruit that grows on a tree. Typically, Americans think of fruit as sweet things like bananas, apples, or oranges. Breadfruit is nothing like this. Instead,...

In the third chapter, entitled "The Island", Mafatu found "a firestick to his liking; a piece of hard wood, bone-dry, as large around as his forearm". Propping the wood against...

The first question is false; Mafatu's island does not look like Hikueru. Hikueru, "the only land that (Mafatu has) ever seen, (is) as flat as his hand". The island on which he lands, however, has...

In Call it Courage, Kivi the albatross is one of Mafatu's animal companions. He develops a close bond with Mafatu after the young boy saves him from the other albatrosses, who bully Kivi...

One of the most compelling elements in Mafatu's narrative is his need to have to face down the demons that he believes are external, but are actually internal. In his own mind, Mafatu believes the...

Tavana Nui announced to his people, "Here is my son come home from the sea. Mafatu, Stout Heart. A brave name for a brave boy!" Because of a traumatic experience with the sea when he was...

At the beginning of the story, what seems to hurt Mafatu the most is his own debilitating fear of the sea. This fear does not hurt him physically, but it does hurt him psychologically. Describing...