Speare's first book, "Calico Captive", was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1957. It features a colonial New Hampshire family kidnapped by Native Americans in 1754. The next year she completed her second historical novel, "The Witch of Blackbird Pond", which won numerous awards including the Newbery Medal. Ideas and inspiration for both books came to Speare while she was researching the history of New England and Connecticut, respectively. She earned her second Newbery Medal for her third book, "The Bronze Bow", published in 1961. "The Sign of the Beaver" (1984) was a Newbery Honor winner and won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction and the Christopher Award.