DNF @45%This just isn't working for me as I can't connect with the characters and the plot is just so boring with hardly anything happening. Maybe things will speed up later but the writing style and the MC's death are just not pulling me in. So in other words I lost interest right from the start and don't know how I got this far

So very disappointed in this; while clearly attempting to write a sympathetic portrayal...Cooper appropriates a veneer of "Native American Culture" to tell the story of her white protagonist. Though the first section of the book is about Little Hawk, she--more or less--kills him off in order to create Ghost Hawk, who is revealed to be a tool in service of John's story. This is humiliating, but also just makes for bad storytelling, as Ghost Hawk is not compelling and weakens John's point of view....

Ugh, I really hate giving one of Susan Cooper's books a bad review but I had to. This is not a children's book. It is an adult book masquerading as a children's book. The story is slow-moving, the characters far too old for the target age group and the story line spans a time period of approximately 50 years and even dips into the modern era! That is much too large of a time span for a historical children's book and makes the book feel both rushed and plodding at the same time. It would have bee...

Little Hawk survives his tribe's tradition of sending their young men into the woods during the winter. When he returns, he finds that his village has been wiped out by a white man's disease. His aged grandmother managed to survive, and both she and Little Hawk go to live with a neighboring tribe. While there, Little Hawk becomes a messenger, and it is on one of his messaging trips that he tries to help John Wakely but is killed by a white man who thinks Little Hawk was trying to harm John Wakel...

Urghh! What a mess of what could have been a good book. It's impossible to explain in detail without spoilers, so suffice to say that it's a structural mess that detracts from a tale of Puritan hypocrisy in American Colonial days that could have had a pleasing symmetry reminiscent of Alan Garner.

meh

The best subtitle for this book would be "Plymouth Plantation....the rest of the story". Second best would be "Pokanokets, Baptists, and the heretics who loved them." At the heart of the story are two young men: Little Hawk and John Wakely. They witness the painful, inevitable displacement of native Americans by white settlers in 1600s America. The book gets inside their thoughts and dreams in a very moving way.Ghost Hawk is very much in the spirit of Dances With Wolves in that all of the good g...

How do we best honor our literary heroes? Particularly those who not only live but continue to produce works of fiction within our lifetimes. Like whole swaths of women and men my age, I grew up on Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series when I was a child. And while I may not have understood everything the books were doing at the time, I liked them sincerely. Admittedly my maturity level made me a bigger sucker for her Boggart series, which was light and fluffy and lovely. When I grew up and b...

There are going to be many, many adults who love this book and yet I'm going to give it only 2-Stars... and here's why.First, this book is supposed to be for the tween to young adult market, and for this market it has some problems, the first being the pacing. Susan Cooper's writing is poetic and descriptive, which adults like, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a good read for younger folks. It takes, for example, all of the adventure and sense of danger out of being attacked by a wolf...

Little hawk has to prove he is a man becasue of his religion read to find out if he survives

One star, because Cooper accurately portrays Squanto's actions, but overall, there are so many red flags, inaccuracies, and misrepresentations of the Wampanoag people in GHOST HAWK, that I am quite stunned, given Cooper's stature in the field. Given details she provides, it is clear she did some research, but she apparently thought it was ok to use information about various tribes in creating the Wampanoag characters and culture. What she did is equivalent to an illustrator putting a totem pole

It’s a shame that I didn’t enjoy this book more, given how much I adore The Dark is Rising and Seaward. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to venture into spoiler territory to explain why, so here’s the non-spoilerish thoughts: the writing is still good, and I actually found the first section of the book pretty absorbing, despite criticisms I have seen about the portrayal of the Native American culture.Given that it’s written in the voice of a Native American character, it has a certain authority

First, I am not the target audience for this book. It is supposedly for middle grade children, but the subject matter after the fluffy start, wasn't really a book for kids. (This was a book-challenge read for me, in case anyone was wondering how this ended up on my "read" list.)The first part with Little Hawk alive and well, was interesting. My boys would have liked that part about the Indian culture and the custom of becoming a man. But then it turns a little tragic, then more tragic. Followed

GHOST HAWK by Susan Cooper, Margaret K. McElderry/Simon & Schuster, August 2013, 336p., ISBN: 978-1-4424-8141-1 "But when one little crossLeads to shots, grit your teeth"-- The Fixx, "One Thing Leads to Another" "PHOENIX -- A federal judge ruled Friday that the office of America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff systematically singled out Latinos in its trademark immigration patrols, marking a first finding by a court that the agency racially profiles people..."[The plaintiffs] also accused th...

I am disagreeing with Ms. Cooper's own opinion of this book. She called it a "...fantasy set within a historical background". However, in my opinion, the goal for historical fiction is to give the reader a sense of what the people of the period were ultimately like, people as we are people, living beings as we are living beings. Ms. Cooper succeeds in this admirably. In what I think may be her best book since the "Dark is Rising" series she explores what the people at the beginnings of this coun...

Its the early 1600's in Southeast Massachusetts and the 11 year old Pokonoket Indian, Little Hawk is preparing for his 3 month long spirit-quest in which he can become a man and find his Manitou, or Animal spirit-guide. Coming back from this trip alive means manhood for Little Hawk, and that he will no longer be regarded as a child. Upon arrival back from his quest, Little Hawk finds his village devastated from European disease with the only known survivors his Grandmother, Suncatcher, and his f...

Well, I’m interested to read a cross-section of the reviews for this book, including the one star by Debbie Reese (whose books read list I note with great interest for future reference), but I have to say I really loved reading this, my second book by Susan Cooper (I’m a latecomer!). I thought it was stunning storytelling, and look forward very much to reading the rest of her work.

Little Hawk is sent by his father out into the woods to survive with the few possessions he carries with him, for three months in the winter. Such a journey will make him a man, but is fraught with peril. There are heavy snows, and he must fast until he sees his Manitou, or spirit guardian. Little Hawk manages to survive, even fending off a wolf who has eaten much of his food stores, but when he gets back to his village, everyone but his grandmother has died of a disease brought by the English.

I absolutely loved the first half of this book, in which we meet Little Hawk, an eleven year old boy about to prove himself a man. He must live for three harsh winter months completely alone, armed with only his bow and arrows, tomahawk and knife to hunt, find shelter and to protect himself against other, fiercer predators... It is an immediately absorbing and engaging narrative - Little Hawk searching for his manitou, striving to survive in the wilderness, enduring the deep snows and bitter sto...

My husband recommended GHOST HAWK to me, and I'm glad he did, because I really enjoyed this interesting and clean read. It is a work of historical fiction about a Pokonoket (later called Wampanoag) Indian boy, Little Hawk, his journey to manhood, and his friendship with a Puritan boy, John Wakely. Without wishing to reveal any spoilers, I will say that the book, which was told in first person by Little Hawk, was divided into sections detailing different time periods and significant events in his...