Ghost Hawk

by Susan Cooper

A friendship between a young Native American and a colonial New England settler endangers them both in this “simply unforgettable” (Booklist, starred review) adventure story from Newbery Medalist Susan Cooper.

On the winter day Little Hawk is sent into the woods alone, he can take only a bow and arrows, his handcrafted tomahawk, and the amazing metal knife his father traded for with the new white settlers. If Little Hawk survives three moons by himself, he will be a man.

John Wakely is only ten when his father dies, but he has already experienced the warmth and friendship of the nearby tribes. Yet his fellow colonists aren’t as accepting of the native people. When he is apprenticed to a barrel-maker, John sees how quickly the relationships between settlers and natives are deteriorating. His friendship with Little Hawk will put both boys in grave danger.

The intertwining stories of Little Hawk and John Wakely are a fascinating tale of friendship and an eye-opening look at the history of our nation. Newbery Medalist Susan Cooper also includes a timeline and an author’s note that discusses the historical context of this important and moving novel.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy, Historical, Fiction, Middle Grade, Audiobook

Audiobook

First published August 1, 2013

About the author

Susan Cooper's latest book is the YA novel "Ghost Hawk" (2013)

Susan Cooper was born in 1935, and grew up in England's Buckinghamshire, an area that was green countryside then but has since become part of Greater London. As a child, she loved to read, as did her younger brother, who also became a writer. After attending Oxford, where she became the first woman to ever edit that university's newspaper, Cooper worked as a reporter and feature writer for London's Sunday Times; her first boss was James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

Cooper wrote her first book for young readers in response to a publishing house competition; "Over Sea, Under Stone" would later form the basis for her critically acclaimed five-book fantasy sequence, "The Dark Is Rising." The fourth book in the series, "The Grey King," won the Newbery Medal in 1976. By that time, Susan Cooper had been living in America for 13 years, having moved to marry her first husband, an American professor, and was stepmother to three children and the mother of two.

Cooper went on to write other well-received novels, including "The Boggart" (and its sequel "The Boggart and the Monster"), "King of Shadows", and "Victory," as well as several picture books for young readers with illustrators such as Ashley Bryan and Warwick Hutton. She has also written books for adults, as well as plays and Emmy-nominated screenplays, many in collaboration with the actor Hume Cronyn, whom she married in 1996. Hume Cronyn died in 2003 and Ms. Cooper now lives in Marshfield MA. When Cooper is not working, she enjoys playing piano, gardening, and traveling.

Recent books include the collaborative project "The Exquisite Corpse Adventure" and her biography of Jack Langstaff titled "The Magic Maker." Her newest book is "Ghost Hawk."

Visit her Facebook pages: www.facebook.com/SusanCooperFanPage
www.facebook.com/GhostHawkBySusanCooper

Reviews

[Debbie · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 by a tipi. They don't go together! They're from different tribal nations!

My detailed notes in a chapter by chapter format are at my site:
http://americanindiansinchildrenslite...

[Betsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 became a children's librarian I dutifully read books of hers like Victory which I enjoyed (and I reread those Dark Is Rising titles to actually get them this time around). All this is to say that I was always a fan. But as a fan, I don't feel particularly inclined to coddle my heroes. The respect and, yes, awe that I feel for them should never blind me to the quality of their writings, even as they grow older. And while there is nothing about Ghost Hawk, the latest book by Ms. Cooper, that suggests that she is working in anything but her prime, I can say with certainty that if I had read it without knowing the author's name I would have called you a dirty liar had you told me its true creator. A mismanaged, ultimately confusing work of historical fiction, this is a well-intentioned piece that suffers at the hands of an otherwise great author.

Little Hawk, member of the Pokanoket tribe of the Wampanoag Nation, is on the cusp of becoming a man. With only a bow and arrows and his own tomahawk, he sets out to survive the cold winter chill for three moons on his own. This he does after much trial and error, only to return to find his tribe felled by disease. After moving to a new tribe he experiences increased interactions with white settlers, and through them begins to befriend a boy by the name of John. When tragedy strikes, Little Hawk is there to guide John and help him learn unfamiliar ways.

Let me say right now that this is a spoilery review. A review so chock full of spoilers that should you wade in, even up to your ankles, you will soon find yourself facing huge discussions of the end of this book and the surprising plot points. I play fair. I warn you. But if you're looking to read this book and you wish to remain shocked by its structural intricacies (such as they are) read no further.

To be clear, mine is not the first voice of dissent on this title. As it happens Ghost Hawk was a subject of much contention even before it was even published. Debbie Reese is tribally enrolled at Nambe Pueblo in northern New Mexico and currently works as an assistant professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ms. Reese raised a great many concerns with the text, and her point of view has been examined and argued and contested ever since. Now I will confess to you that this is not my own area of expertise. The likelihood of one name being used over another, or the ways in which someone actually goes about creating a tomahawk are unknown to me. This may be a debate that rages for some time, and I've no doubt that it shall. That said, I had my very own personal problems with Cooper's text. Problems that had less to do with customs like when one gives tobacco to another, and more with the broader scope of the book itself. Take, for example, the Pokanoket tribe of the Wampanoag Nation. I wouldn't go so far as to call them humorless, but Cooper imbues them with a stately majesty best suited to totems or symbols rather than people. Where is their humor? Where is their humanity? They live and die as representations, not humans. When Little Hawk returns to his village, you feel mildly bad for him but hardly crushed. You didn't know these people, not really. They didn't feel enough like people to you. So where's the outrage? Where's the anger?

Then there's the fact that in his ghost form (more on that in a second), Little Hawk is capable of seeing the past and the present but not the future. This awfully convenient narrative technique is unworthy of an author of Cooper's skill. It is a clunky choice. A more elegant method of introducing information that Little Hawk would not otherwise have would have been welcome. As it is, we're stuck with an amusingly semi-omnipotent narrator.

These have been my problems with the book, certainly. But if we take another step back and simply look at the plot of the book in its roughest form, problems are immediately apparent. Here, then, is the plot. A Wampanoag boy named Little Hawk grows up and undergoes a trial to prove that he is a man. When he returns he finds his village dead. He grows up. He is killed (thus ends the first part of this book). He then is seen in ghost form by a white child settler named John. John learns the Algonquin language and customs through his friendship with Little Hawk's ghost. At this point the reader is going to start wondering how John will use this knowledge. Will he be a bridge between communities? Will he use his valuable skills to solve problems no one else can?

Nope. He'll grow up and be killed by a different Native American. Good night, everybody!!

I don't think I'm the only one who read that passage in the book where John dies and came to the unavoidable conclusion that this book didn't have much in a way of a point. Under normal circumstances, when a character acquires knowledge after a long period of time (not to mention a deeper understanding of another culture) they use it later in the story to the benefit of others. One could argue that John does use the knowledge when he saves Metacom from certain death, but this is not the case. John grabs the child and then is able to communicate with the parents later, but no real outcome is derived from this. Well, then maybe Cooper's point is that there is no point. Maybe history is just a series of unfortunate events without rhyme or reason. Could be. But why even bother to take the time to build this friendship between a boy and a ghost if you're just going to throw it away later? I cannot for the life of me figure out what Cooper was doing with this story.

Which brings us to the very end of the book. The moment when Susan Cooper herself decides to walk onto the page. We know from her Author's Note that Ms. Cooper "built a house on Little Hawk's island" seven years ago or so. This act served as one of the impetuses for writing this book in the first place. Lots of authors have found similar fonts of inspiration in their adopted homes. What they do not usually do is put themselves into the books as the ultimate Deus Ex Machina. In the case of "Ghost Hawk", Ms. Cooper introduces Little Hawk to Rachel. She is "a woman, in her middle years. She has dark eyes and hair, and her name is Rachel. She is a painter. She appears to live alone." Rachel's purpose in this story is to free Little Hawk from his imprisonment. It is she that figures out what John and Little Hawk himself could not. She solves the mystery of his existence, he goes free, and that's the end of the book. Above and beyond whether or not it's kosher to end a book with a white woman swooping in to save the day one has to assume it's a bit odd when the author places such a clear cut stand-in for themselves on the page. Again, the appearance of Rachel is clunky. I keep using that word but no other fits quite as well. It disrupts the book without need or reason.

Now here's the kicker. For all that I moan and groan and rend my garments, you never once forget that Cooper is a great author. She knows how to construct a tale. Maybe a bit of judicious editing would not have been out of place (clocking in at 336 pages the removal of 50 or so could only have been to the good) but you're never in doubt of the fact that the woman knows how to write. Amusingly, I've just gone back to my own dog-eared copy to find that I even highlighted some passages. One was a rather interesting description of how the wars with Spain ate up all the trees in England thanks to the efforts of the shipyards. It's a fun moment, but then it's a moment when we've returned to Cooper's native land. Moreover, as I read through the book I noticed that the audience it really seems to be aimed towards is adults. Our hero Little Hawk spends very little time young. John himself grows with prodigious speed and then is a grown man seeking his way in the world. Are there many enticements for kids in this story? I think not.

There will be, I just know, a child out there assigned this book to read for school. The teacher will gaze with respect upon the author's name and the words "Newbery Award-Winning Author of the Dark Is Rising" embedded on the book's front cover. They may even seek out the reviews that praise it highly. PW called it "well-researched and elegant", while Booklist gave it a star and said, "this is simply an unforgettable reading experience." No argument there, but I think we differ slightly on what we deem "unforgettable". Even Horn Book itself praised it to the skies with the words "powerful" and "memorable". And so they shall assign this book to their fourth or fifth or sixth graders and it will become a book of required reading for many summers to come. The kids could read instead the expertly penned The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. They could delve into Helen Frost's Salt A Story of Friendship in a Time of War or Tim Tingle's How I Became A Ghost or Rosanne Parry's Written in Stone. But no. They will be assigned this and they will reach the ending saying precisely what I myself said: What precisely is the point? The point, it would seem, is that even a strong and talented writer who knows how to make a truly beautiful sentence does, occasionally, fall flat. This is not Cooper's best effort. It is not even in her top ten. It is, however, historical American history. We'll just have to agree to disagree on whether or not that trumps its other problems.

[☼Bookish in Virginia☼ · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

Second, the narrative is split, and split in a way that again, I don't think is very appealing to Tweens and Teens. There's Little Hawk at first, and then there's John. And the story covers a long time span, which some of the intended audience is going to have difficulties relating to.

Now having spoken from my Mom-is-examining-this-book-for-her-kids-and-her-kids-blog point of view, let me tell you what did not work for me: the narrative is flat, unexciting, and preachy.

**EVER SO SLIGHT SPOILER POTENTIAL HERE**

Here is an example that I think shows all three shortfalls. It's an example of John's IMMENSE anger at his Step-father's telling him that he is an unworthy cretin not worthy of marrying a servant, and that if he doesn't tow the line that he (Kelly, the stepfather) will destroy him and any chances he has of making a living:

-------
"Anger was flooding through him, bursting out of its
long suppression. 'If you had been honest men, you
would have confess your mistake openly to all, and
asked forgiveness of God!"

Daniel (another character) grabbed him, pinning his
arms to his sides. "Stop!"

John stopped. He stood still; he took a deep breath.
He looked hopelessly at his stepfather, a God-fearing,
bigoted man who happened to be in the wrong place at
the wrong time nine years before."

-------
END OF THE **EVER SO SLIGHT SPOILER POTENTIAL HERE**

That's it. Nothing left out. These were the signs of John's great rage. Okay for many adults, but a bit underplayed for me and I have to think, also for 'target' audience.

GHOST HAWK gives some accurate portrayals of that era. It portrays the brutality of Pilgrim fathers very well. But for all of that, GHOST HAWK is not a book I'm going to suggest to my tween and teen. Just not interesting enough. I can't remember which book I read about Mary Jemison, but this story, based upon true events, was much more engaging and educational. I even enjoyed YEAR OF THE BEAVER more, although it's flawed as well. And older readers who really want a unique view of how much more enjoyable it was to be an Indian than a white settler should search up James Axtell's paper, "The White Indians of Colonial America."

[Nicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 about that, but apparently it’s not very accurate, taking elements from different tribal cultures and mixing them up. The end result is a pretty generically Native American setting, with the characters behaving and believing in a general Native-American-ish way to the casual reader… but despite all the details and the sense of authority, this doesn’t fit the tribe Little Hawk is supposed to be a part of. It fits with what I sort of expected, but I’d have liked something more accurate — even with fiction, I don’t read just to get a general stereotype reflected back to me.

And now for the spoilery part.

Just under halfway through the book, the point of view character is murdered, and thus we pass from the Native American experience to a Native American hanging around relatively unable to act, like white people become the focus. I’m not a big fan of the narrative trick Cooper pulls to begin with, and it makes it worse that it takes a character who was active, engaging and unique and makes the story all about the experiences of a young white boy, just arrived to colonise North America, while the Native character hangs around being sympathetic and trapped. And dead.

So much no. That set up just… no. And then, surprise! We get some white saviour stuff.

I still enjoyed the general quality of Cooper’s writing, but in terms of plotting, the book was rather slow, and that ‘gotcha’ in the middle just annoyed me. Bah.

Originally posted here.

[Luke Mich · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Rusty's Ghost Engine (also known as.......... Jinky Spring)]

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

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 yet by even more tragedy when Little Hawk died suddenly (more accurately, murdered). That is when the POV shifted to a boy from the white settlements, who apparently could see Little Hawk as a ghost. That was odd, especially with the mention of witch hunts in their society, which would include little boys who could see ghosts. This seemed like two different short stories squashed together to make one longer story.

The author also took various tribal differences from the different Indian nations and put them all together into one tribe. Usually creative writing doesn't bother me depending on overall effect, but when it comes to books for kids as the target audience, I don't like it. The historical part should be accurate and educational with fun thrown in. I call it inaccurate, the author says its imagination...whatever. This didn't settle well with me, so 2 stars.

[Nina · Rating 1 out of 5]

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. The ending fast forwards into contemporary times, with an adult artist speaking to Ghost Hawk; she is pretty clearly a stand in for Cooper herself, and reveals the author's position. A very misguided effort.

[Richie Partington · Rating 5 out of 5]

GHOST HAWK by Susan Cooper, Margaret K. McElderry/Simon & Schuster, August 2013, 336p., ISBN: 978-1-4424-8141-1

"But when one little cross
Leads 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 the sheriff of ordering some immigration patrols not based on reports of crime but rather on letters and emails from Arizonans who complained about people with dark skin congregating in an area or speaking Spanish."
-- Associated Press, May 24, 2013

"I put the knife in my belt. I was ready. I went to the baby's cradle and touched his smooth round cheek in farewell. He gave a small sigh but he did not wake. Someday, I thought, all this would be happening to him, too.
"We went out into the cold grey morning. My father and I strapped on our snowshoes and put our longbows over our shoulders. My mother kissed me on the forehead and handed my father a scarf of soft doeskin and a long deerskin strap. I smiled at her, and at Quickbird's anxious face, and they were the last things I saw before my father bound the scarf across my eyes, tying it securely behind my head. Then he put one end of the strap into my hand; this was how he would lead me into the forest.
"'You will come back a man,' he said."

After three moons on his own, having survived the winter storms and a near-deadly encounter with a wolf, Little Hawk successfully returns home to find that home is gone. Virtually his entire village has succumbed to a virus that has arrived by way of trading with the white men from across the ocean who have landed in what, one day, will become Massachusetts. The arrival of these white men from across the sea will become the ever-present focus of his people's future.

"Quickbird waved. Turtledove and Little Fox and the boy were playing cup and ball. He seemed to know it already; perhaps all children everywhere play the same games.
"Quickbird looked down at them. 'Look how different they are!' she said. 'The same, but so different.'"

In the wake of moving to a new settlement with survivors from other nearby villages, Little Hawk will cross paths with a ten year-old British transplant, John Wakely. Little Hawk's kindness toward this blue-eyed Pilgrim child during their brief and chance first encounter will forever direct the arc of John Wakely's life and define his outlook about this New World, a place where so many of those who escaped religious persecution in the Old World.are so eager to forcefully impose their own religious zealotry upon everyone in their midst.

It will be the reverberations resulting from Little Hawk's and John Wakely's meeting, the manner in which one small thing leads to another, that makes GHOST HAWK such a powerful story and transforms it from being merely a great piece of historical fiction to being an extraordinary piece of historical fiction, one that is so relevant today, given the blind fears and suspicions that far too many in America continue to harbor toward Latinos and Muslims and African Americans and anyone else who may look different or speak a different language or pray differently or listen to weird music.

There will be plenty of young readers of GHOST HAWK who will readily recognize the parallels between the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later attitude of the colonists, the racial profiling of Joe Arpaio & company, and the readiness by far too many Americans to see a godless terrorist lurking beneath every head scarf.

Here in California, American history is a part of the fifth and eighth grade curriculums. A treasure of a read, GHOST HAWK is also going to be a powerful addition to the lists of trade books to supplement the curriculum.

Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_... http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/facult...

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 country were like. She makes it clear they were people, good and bad.

Ms. Cooper has done something that I can't recall any other author of youth material doing, at least successfully: she kills off her main character part way through the book. Yet he speaks on as a ghost. (His name was Little Hawk, so now the title of the book is clear.) She broke one of the taboos of youth literature: thou shalt not kill in a book unless the victim is unbearably cute and innocent, or if the victim is pretty much completely evil and "it couldn't have happened to a nicer person". Little Hawk is not incredibly cute. She uses the effects of his death on an innocent white boy who had met Little Hawk briefly some time before this shooting to show the emotional makeup of the times. How very righteous the self proclaimed Christians were and unforgivingly harsh. Gee, it might almost remind one of the righteous Christians of our time who are unforgivingly harsh who do things such as invade a woman's privacy who has decided that only an abortion will solve the mess she is in. And so on. Our heritage of self righteousness in this country comes to us through the type of people Ms. Cooper writes about in this book. The storyline is excellent as well. Superficially it is a recounting of King Phillip's War and events before and after that war. Really it is more an exploration of what Roger Williams was like and the type of environment he established in Providence as opposed to the type of environment elsewhere in the white part of the country. Personally I would like to see it in the juvenile section of the library but I am reasonably sure with the death of the main character, it will be shoved into YA territory. Putting this in J would give impressionable minds a chance to understand that unquestioning righteousness is a real danger to society. Hopefully there will be plenty of teens around who can still learn that lesson.
Don't make the mistake of judging this book by her Dark is Rising series. This is entirely different and if that is how you approach this book, you will be disappointed in the same way readers are disappointed by Rowling's two adult titles who expected some of the magic of Harry Potter. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys youth literature. A master of the craft has produced another masterpiece and I only hope she has a long time left to continue such magnificent work as she has done in her career!

[Joey Gyarmathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 friend Leaping Turtle who also went on a spirit-quest. After emigrating to a new village, Little Hawk and Leaping Turtle are selected as runners for their village. On their first run to their Sachem, Yellow Feather, Little Hawk and Leaping Turtle come across a young English boy whom they've met before, calling for help. His father is trapped under a tree, but the fathers friends mistake Leaping Turtle and Little Hawks aid for an attack. Little Hawk is shot and killed.
The death of this innocent Indian pays a great toll on the young mind of the English boy, John Wakeley. John collects Little Hawk's hatchet and keeps it safe. After returning to the island on the salt marsh from where Little Hawk's hatchet was created, John sees the spirit of Little Hawk and is able to connect with his spirit. John is guided by Little Hawks spirit and uses his advice to face the hardship and prejudice against which not only baptist worshipers as well as Native Americans suffer. Watch how John, with the help of Little Hawk copes with the oncoming threat of English colonist's cruelty, racism and oppression.

This story of murder, prejudice and hardship would be a great novel for anyone who enjoys Native American stories, Historical Fiction, Spiritual stories, or anyone who loves Adventure stories for that matter. I believe that this book was well worth my time and be assured it will be worth your time too.

[Library Lady · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 been better if she had chosen one specific incident during that 50 year span and written about that. She could have still made all of her points, but it would have been much more succinct and accessible. By the end of the book I felt like Little Hawk who just wanted his spirit to be released already! I won't address any issues with the Native American portrayal because I am not an expert on that.

The book is well written, but it's not a children's book and probably not even a young adult book. I wish I could say differently, but I can't. And I seriously wonder how the other review journals can rate it so highly given all of its flaws. Maybe those reviewers haven't worked with modern 10-14 year olds recently? Ugh.

[Mrs. Strudthoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 Wakely.

But Little Hawk lives on as a spirit who guides and helps John throughout Wakely's life.

Lots of twists and turns, but the book ends up where Little Hawk's hatchet began its life and he can finally rest.

This book is fantastic! If you like Broken Blade, this novel will knock your socks off. READ THIS BOOK!

[Judith Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Elizabeth Dragina · Rating 1 out of 5]

meh

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 storms of winter - all gripping stuff. Likewise the terrible discovery he makes when he returns to his village - brilliant. It is when the story shifts to the point of view of the young white settler, John Wakeley, that the narrative feels like it loses some of its freshness and verve. It is still well written; the character of John is well realised and, once you can accept the more supernatural/mystical elements to the story, it all goes well. It's just that I've seen too many episodes of Little House on the Prairie and various Westerns, and so it feels like a too-well trodden path. It is interesting though, getting a closer view of the religious tensions that caused deep divisions within the settlers, not to mention the more benevolent view of the native tribes taken by some of them.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 guys are on the natives side. In this case all the bad guys -- in addition to being English -- also happen to be strictly religious.

But although the author doesn't try to be balanced in her treatment of the story, she fills the book with a handful of charming and likable characters that make the story a pleasure to read.

[CynthyB · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 life, and in the life of his friend.

I read many Good Reads reviews after completing the book--many of which were negative. I'm glad I didn't read them beforehand so I could make up my own mind.

Whether or not the historical aspects are completely accurate I am not qualified to say, but the descriptions of locations, customs, practices, and ideologies are interesting and appear to reflect at least a measure of historical accuracy. Whenever reading historical fiction, I have to expect that there will always be a certain amount of distortion, since it would be impossible to portray with complete accuracy all aspects of another time period and people without having been there among them at the time. I thought Susan Cooper's story was, if not riveting, (because there were some slower moments for the sake of description--which I still appreciated), then at least compelling. I wanted to find out what was going to happen, and I was completely invested in the characters and the story. While the scales appeared to have tipped toward the Indians as being less hypocritical than the Puritans, Cooper, I think, tried to show elements of both cultures as being flawed and well-meaning at the same time. That the Puritans, as a whole, were not a tolerant people is certainly an underlying theme. That there were differing attitudes and mistrust among the various tribes, and within tribal units, toward the Puritans was also portrayed.

The book sent me looking for historical maps and photos of various places in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, as well as for biographical information about historical figures such as Massasoit (Yellow Feather) and Roger Williams, and events during that time period. I love when historical fiction sparks a further interest in refreshing my education about people and places that help me appreciate, and enhance my understanding of their important part in history. That said, the author did her job in drawing me in and inspiring me to take responsibility to find out more.

I haven't read Susan Cooper before, but I am going to give some of her other books a chance.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book from the library because it had the word "ghost" in the title and it's October. I had no idea what I was in for.

This book broke my heart in so many ways. There are so many misunderstandings and just plain pigheadedness.

I loved the cycles and returning to familiar places/people. This book resounds with echoes.

I've already recommended this book to my students but I want to buy a copy now.

[Blake]

read

[Faith Tovey · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was good at the start then started talking about random white people. Do not recommend.

[Amrit Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book involves murders, mysteries, and memory. Little Hawk is going on a trip to become a man which is surviving a winter in the forest all alone and has to find his spirit. He can only bring a bow and arrow, a knife that his father gifts him and tomahawk. But when he comes back a sad surprise is left for him.

[Dena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another read with my little.

I am far too critical for middle school reads but the characters were flat and there was little nuance in their development.

[Lula Lina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars .ᐟ 🦅
╰┈➤ unmarked spoilers!

Memories by Maroon 5
Toast to the ones here today
Toast to the ones that we lost on the way
'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories
And the memories bring back, memories bring back you

જ⁀➴ my thoughts
Not a great start for my first book club book 🥲 it was... fine. I had no idea what to expect but I wasn't expecting Little Hawk to be killed off. At all. Killing off the main character was a bold choice and it was very interesting having Little Hawk narrate it from a distance. I liked the writing style.
Also, suprise brother's best friend trope 😅😅
I never really got to know or care about any of the characters apart from Little Hawk and John.
The symbolism of the tomohawk was lost on me and the ending was confusing.
I'm not going to comment on the historical accuracy of the book because I know nothing about the Native Americans other than the basics.

જ⁀➴ the characters
Little Hawk, his people, his family and John all deserved so much better 🥲
Like I said, I never really got to care or know any of the characters properly apart from Little Hawk and John.

↳ ❝ In the end, all it takes is one small action, by one person. One at a time. ❞

I'll stick to Michael Morpurgo for my historical fiction.

3 stars✨️
Wouldn't recommend, wouldn't re-read.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈
It was... eh. Review to come.

[Jarred Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is very well written. There are lots of details in this story that leads you to make want to keep on reading on. John was a boy that was a key to the whole story, because he was the one person that Little Hawk communicated with and lead him in the right direction. Little Hawk is very good representation of good leaders. Little Hawk showed John little things in life that would help him get along with the native people, and also give him the chance to bring the two groups of people together.

[Julier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this great audio book when I looked for books narrated by the great actor Jim Dale (Harry Potter series). Jim Dale does a superb job of creating distinct voices for each character, including the Little Hawk recalling past events. Set in early colonial Massachusetts, John Wakeley, a colonial boy and a Native American forge a special bond that transcends cultures and even time when the boy grows into a man, still guided by his friend's ghost/soul. John struggles with the cruelties and inflexible religious beliefs and practices of his own culture. Roger Williams, an important religious historical person, provided beliefs and a way of life that John strove to achieve. I read a lot of criticism of Susan Cooper's authenticity for her Native American portrayal, but some of her main sources are excellent so I don't put a lot of credence in the criticism.) She lists resources and a bibliography.

[T.E. Shepherd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since I read Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, and the sequence of which it is part I have loved Susan Cooper's books and she she has remained one of my favoured authors. Probably my next favourite of her books was the less well-known (I think) Seaward, but these were all books of my childhood and she releases new books only occasionally. I was therefore really looking forward with great anticipation, reading this, her latest. So much so that I went down to my local bookshop on the day of publication to buy it...

I was not disappointed. The narrative is delicious. Through Susan Cooper's words you really get a feel for the landscape and the language of the native American people at the the time when the first English settlers were arriving. Throughout Book One, I really felt that I was living Little Hawk's life as he experienced his coming of age adventures on his own, and I was shocked and surprised at how Part One ends... although I'm not sure why considering the title of the book!

The tale of John is also convincing, but I feel that I was let down by the story as a whole for the same reason that, much as I love The Dark is Rising Sequence, I feel a little unfulfilled by it. The main characters seem to be following some predermined destiny that they must follow and so in the end, whatever they might decide to do or not do its not actually going to make any difference. In The Dark Is Rising Will is an Old One who has no choice but to do what has been foretold. Here, Ghost Hawk too, must wait on his island for John to come to him - they can't do their own thing.

[Olivia Zelenka · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book "Ghost Hawk" is an action packed adventure of a Native American boy and how he inspired others, not only Indians, but the colonists as well. This book is a historic fiction novel that shows the Native American Indians and the English colonists were both affected by each others presence on the land. I would recommend this book to anyone in our grade because it relates to the studies of Jamestown that we are doing in social studies or ace right now and gives you a more interesting perspective of the events during the colonization. But I would especially recommend it to everyone who loves adventure because it is an action packed book that makes it very hard to put down.
Little Hawk is a Native American child who is sent off to live on his own in the wilderness for three moons, to prove that he is a man in his village, but when he returns everyone in his village has died except his grandmother. All of the Native American tribes believed that it was a disease that all of the colonists brought to them. The few remaining people left started their own tribe and learned how they needed to work together to get through the many hardships that they were facing. This book reminds me of the book Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen because it takes place in the wilderness and puts the main characters in extremely difficult situations that allow them to see their limitations and almost encourage the reader to push themselves, even if its not going out into the middle of the wilderness.

[Martha Meyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I agree in some ways with Booklists' starred review " In sum, this is simply an unforgettable reading experience," I have deep reservations about the book, too. The idea that a native american would be kept from entering the afterlife for the sole purpose of being able to enter the mind of a follower of Roger Williams seems deeply anglo-centric. The author clearly can write beautifully, but she doesn't bother to answer the questions she creates about her world. We are left wondering the same thing as Hawk: "I see much. And I wonder why I am left here to see, with no power at all to help the good or hinder the ill." The author clearly states that she wrote the story because she bought a piece of land and began to wonder what happened on the land before she bought it. Her vision of Native Americans is highly romantic and evocative -- but does it do a disservice by perpetuating the myth of the noble savage? I would be glad to have my son read this book to hear how the colliding of worlds helped destroy Native American cultures, but then he'd also be reading that a native american man's best possible service is to support and counsel a white man -- would that put my son back in the anglocentric box we were attempting to free him from? I am not sure I am comfortable recommending this book.