The Carved Box

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Callum Murdoch, a 15-year-old orphan from Edinburgh, Scotland, has been
sent to live with his uncle, Rory McBean, on his frontier farm in Upper
Canada where Rory, a Loyalist, settled following the American War of
Independence. An aspiring “gentleman,” Callum is mentally and
physically ill-prepared for the demanding dawn-to-dusk labor required
six-and-a-half days per week to wrest farmland from the forests.
Eventually Callum achieves the opportunity to become the community’s
teacher for part of each year.

If this storyline was all Chan had to offer, she would have provided
middle-school readers with a most entertaining piece of Canadian
social-historical fiction. However, she also weaves into her story an
engaging fantasy thread (introduced in the prologue), wherein readers
learn that some malevolent entity has encapsulated something in a
seemingly lidless carved box.

When Callum negotiates to buy a large, female Newfoundland-like dog
from the man who has been mistreating her, the man shows Callum a carved
box and says, “[a]s long as you keep this box sealed like this, Bess
is bound to be your faithful servant.” The dog, whom Callum renames
Dog, becomes well-loved not only by Callum but also by Rory’s four
young children, two of whom she rescues from serious harm. Nonetheless,
Callum experiences increasing unease about Dog, especially when the pair
are attempting to find oxen lost in a winter storm. When Callum falls,
breaking the box, he sees in place of Dog a young naked girl.
Ultimately, Callum recognizes that friendship sometimes means sacrifice,
and he lets Dog go to be what she must be. Highly recommended.