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Ghost Hawk
Author:
Cooper, Susan
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Class:
Fiction
Age: 10-14
Language: English
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LC: PZ7.C787
Grade: 5-9
Print Run: 100000
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ISBN-13: 9781442481411
LCCN: 2012039892
Imprint: Margaret K. McElderry Books
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Pub Date: 08/27/2013
Availability: Available
List: $16.99
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Hardcover Reinforced
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Physical Description:
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328 p. : map ; 22 cm.
H 8.44",
W 5.5",
D 1.1",
0.92 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's For Youth Interest: Popular
Brodart's Insight Catalog: Teen
Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles
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Bibliographies:
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Children's Core Collection, 22nd ed.
Children's Core Collection, 23rd ed.
Children's Core Collection, 24th ed.
Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 12th ed.
Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 13th ed.
Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 14th ed.
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Awards:
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Booklist Editors Choice
Booklist Starred Reviews
Horn Book Guide Titles, Rated 1 - 4
Publishers Weekly Annual Best Books Selections
Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews
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Starred Reviews:
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Booklist
Publishers Weekly
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TIPS Subjects:
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Historical Fiction
Friendship
Native American
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BISAC Subjects: |
JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General
JUVENILE FICTION / Historical / United States / Colonial & Revolutionary Periods
JUVENILE FICTION / Social Themes / Death, Grief, Bereavement
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LC Subjects:
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Coming of age, Fiction
Ghosts, Fiction
Indians of North America, Massachusetts, Fiction
Massachusetts, History, New Plymouth, 1620-1691, Fiction
Survival, Fiction
Wampanoag Indians, Fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Bildungsromans
Ghost stories
Massachusetts, History, Fiction
Native Americans, Massachusetts, Fiction
Surivial skills, Fiction
Wampanoag Indians, Fiction
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Reading Programs: |
Accelerated Reader Level:
5.9
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Points: 12.0
Lexile Level:
940
Reading Counts Level:
7.3
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Points: 17.0
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| Annotations |
| Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles | 08/01/2013 |
| Are these two fated to be friends...or destined to be enemies? A dangerous rift grows between a Native American and a New England settler as the young boys struggle to maintain their friendship despite increased tension between the settlers and the natives. 336pp. |
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| Starred Reviews: |
| Booklist | 07/01/2013 |
| Grades 6-10. Upon return from his three-month test of solitude, young Little Hawk of the Pokanoket tribe finds his village devastated by disease, and all but his grandmother are dead. The two move to another village, where they are adopted and become part of the community, and much of this novel focuses on their quiet life there until something unspeakable happens. Then the focus shifts to 10-year-old John Wakeley, and the book becomes more clearly a historical fantasy that links the lives of Little Hawk and John in a mysterious way. Set in the seventeenth century, Cooper's wonderful novel is unsparing in its treatment of the bigoted attitudes of many of the English settlers toward the Pokanoket people, and of the censorious nature of the settlers' religion. The historical figure Roger Williams, a character in the novel, says sadly, "They have escaped repression in order to repress others." The novel's dramatic tension resides in the fact that John grows up to be a friend to the native people and, like Williams, a Separatist, believing that people should be free to worship as they will, a belief for which he will be flogged. Cooper has written a richly plotted, lyrical, and near-epic novel filled with wonderfully realized and sympathetic characters. In sum, this is simply an unforgettable reading experience. Cart, Michael. 336p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2013. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 06/17/2013 |
| Ages 10-14. In this well-researched and elegant historical fantasy, a Wampanoag boy named Little Hawk survives the loss of his village to a plague contracted from the Pilgrims, who have recently founded Plymouth. Later he befriends a white boy, John Wakeley, only to have a shocking act of violence irrevocably alter their lives. As the years pass, John grows to manhood, learns a trade, marries, and avoids the Pilgrims' bigotry, drawn to the more tolerant principles of Roger Williams, founder of the colony of Providence. Despite its occasional violence, much of veteran fantasist Cooper's story is understated, devoted to what is essentially philosophical discussion and a vivid depiction of the Massachusetts wilderness. Although the tale unfolds almost entirely in English, Cooper impressively conveys the barriers, both cultural and linguistic, that divided natives and settlers, sometimes with horrifying results. Both Little Hawk and John maintain their essential decency in the face of the world's injustice, while Cooper demonstrates, as Little Hawk says, "Change is made by the voice of one person at a time." Agent: Rubin Pfeffer, East West Literary Agency. (Aug.). 336p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2013. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books | 11/01/2013 |
| Ad. Gr. 5-8. After surviving three solitary months in a harsh Northeast winter to prove himself a man, Little Hawk, an eleven-year-old Wampanoag boy of the late seventeenth century, returns home to find his tribe decimated by plague. Little Hawk rebuilds a life along with several survivors from surrounding tribes, but the tensions between white settlers and Native Americans reach a fever pitch, and he is shot dead while trying to rescue an injured white man and his son. Up until this point, Little Hawk has narrated his own life, but now as a spirit, he tells the story of John Wakely, the white boy he helped and with whom Little Hawk's ghost can now occasionally speak. John grows up to follow the tolerant preachings of Roger Williams, and eventually he also loses his life attempting to broker peace between the native tribes and the English settlers. The shift in focus after Little Hawk's death is frustrating, as the character goes from a solid, developing protagonist to merely a placid observer, a mostly impotent engine by which John's story is then told. The ghostly connection between the two, however, provides an opportunity for a cultural exchange that would likely not have otherwise happened, and Cooper explores the similarities and differences between the two communities while examining the dangerous concoction of greed, fear, and ignorance that drove the two factions to violence. Rich period detail makes for an immersive experience, but a more specific list of sources, particularly in regards to Little Hawk's traditions, would have been appreciated. A closing timeline traces the multiple atrocities committed against Native Americans in the name of U.S. expansion, leaving readers with no easy answers, only a long, violent history, likely much different from the story told in their history textbooks. KQG. 325p. THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIV. OF ILLINOIS, c2013. |
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| Horn Book | 09/01/2013 |
| Intermediate, Middle School. When Little Hawk bids goodbye to his friends and family before embarking on the three-month test of solitude that will mark his passage into manhood, little does he know it will be the last time he sees most of them alive. After a difficult winter surviving in the wilderness, Little Hawk returns to find his village virtually eradicated by disease ("the white man's plague"). He works hard to rebuild his life and seems to take the wave of encroaching white settlers in stride, but a horrible tragedy befalls him, one that also haunts his young settler friend, John Wakeley, the novel's second protagonist. The incident -- unexpected and shocking -- also marks a shift in genre from a wilderness survival adventure to epic historical fiction about the relations between the native inhabitants of New England and the first colonial settlers. A single fantasy element bridges the two parts and allows Little Hawk not only to narrate his own story but, omnisciently, to relate the entwined destinies of Wakeley, the colonial settlers, and the Pokanoket tribe. The novel maintains an admirable sense of historical empathy, foreshadowed in the epigraphs (from Roger Williams and Woody Guthrie) and punctuated by an appended timeline that chronicles the demise of the native way of life in the face of hostile invaders. Cooper here demonstrates that there's plenty of magic left in her pen, delivering a powerful and memorable novel. jonathan hunt. 328pg. THE HORN BOOK, c2013. |
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| Horn Book Guide | 05/01/2014 |
| 2. When Little Hawk returns to his village after a three-month test of solitude, he finds it virtually eradicated by disease. Another tragedy befalls him, one that also haunts his colonial settler friend, John Wakeley, the story's second protagonist. The novel maintains an admirable sense of historical empathy as it chronicles the demise of the native way of life in the face of hostile invaders. jh. 328pg. THE HORN BOOK, c2014. |
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| Kirkus Reviews | 06/15/2013 |
| A white boy and a Native American youth form an enduring bond in this historical fantasy set in 17th-century Massachusetts. Eleven-year-old Little Hawk survives the Pokanoket tribe's "proving time" alone in the winter woods for three months only to discover his village devastated by a plague transmitted by encroaching white settlers. Later, Little Hawk's killed by a paranoid white settler while trying to help the injured father of a white boy named John Wakeley. Upset by the injustice of Little Hawk's murder, John's sent by his stern Puritan stepfather on a seven-year apprenticeship north of Plymouth. Here, John encounters Little Hawk's ghost, who becomes his confidant and friend. Gradually, John becomes an outspoken advocate for native people, challenging the bigoted, intolerant Puritans and eventually joining separatist Roger Williams in Providence Plantation. Narrator Little Hawk describes his brief life as a Pokanoket youth and continues as ghost observer with the story of John Wakeley and the increasing unrest between settlers and local tribes. Cooper's thorough historical research provides authentic period detail, contrasting the attitudes and lifestyles of settlers and native people. This sensitive portrayal of an unusual friendship poignantly reveals how greed and intolerance led to Native American displacement in colonial Massachusetts. (map, timeline, author's note) (Historical fiction. 10-14). 336pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2013. |
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| School Library Journal | 09/01/2013 |
| Gr 6-9--Cooper takes a departure from her well-known fantasies to present a thoughtful historical fantasy. The story begins around 1620, when Little Hawk is nearing proving time to become a man in his Wampanoag tribe. One winter's morning, he is sent out into the woods alone, armed only with a bow and arrows, a tomahawk, and a knife. He must try to survive for three moons before returning to his family. When he does, he is devastated to find that everyone except his grandmother has died of smallpox. He, along with his grandmother and one of his friends, finds shelter with another tribe, and as they settle in he has his first encounter with local Pilgrims. Little Hawk begins a friendship with a white boy named John Wakely that will change both of their lives forever. After Little Hawk is killed, his ghost helps John navigate their different cultures and language, while the world around them changes and tensions between the Natives and the settlers grow. While this is a beautifully written story, it is a bit slow-moving and not wholly accessible to its target audience. Little Hawk and John begin the story as children, but they eventually grow up, and the book spans approximately 50 years, even touching into modern times. Young readers may have difficulty following all of the history. Necia Blundy, formerly at Marlborough Public Library, MA. 328p. SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013. |
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9781442481411,dl.it[0].title
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