This book makes a decent attempt to teach readers what the relationship between the colonists and natives was like in central Maine in the late 1700s. The writing does a decent job of portraying multiple perspectives despite being told through the lens of a white boy who (as the reader insert for most of it) poses moral questions about colonization and racism, and takes his time coming around to the fact that maybe there are some things that will never be mutually understood despite everyone's best effort... and maybe that's okay. There is a lot that different communities can learn from each other as long as there is mutual respect between them.

The most distracting part of the story is, perhaps most obviously, the way Attean and his family speak pidgin English. It's a stereotypical portrayal and does not improve despite Matt's claim to the contrary.

And on the subject of the portrayal of indigenous peoples in media, I really appreciated the acknowledgement of the inherent racism in a lot of "classic" literature such as Robinson Crusoe. It's there and white people like Matt never really questioned it because "it's just a story" and "it just makes sense for white people to be superior" in their minds. So, having Attean show his anger at the implication that an indigenous person should be a white man's slave by nature and forcing Matt to really consider why this scene in his favorite book isn't okay is a decent prod for readers to use critical thinking skills when it comes to race relations.