Calico Captive

Calico Captive is Elizabeth George Speare's first historical fiction children's novel. It was inspired by the true story of Susanna Willard Johnson (1730–1810) who, along with her family and younger sister, were kidnapped in an Abenakis Indian raid on Charlestown, New Hampshire in August 1754.

The main events in Calico Captive, which occurred on the brink of the French and Indian War, were taken from Johnson's narrative diary A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson, which was first published in 1796. Calico Captive is told through the eyes of Miriam, Johnson's younger sister, and her imagined adventures.