Ghost Hawk

by Susan Cooper Narrated by Jim Dale

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

starred review Booklist

* "Cooper has written a richly plotted, lyrical, and near-epic novel...this is simply an unforgettable reading experience."

BCCB

"Rich period detail makes for an immersive experience."

Karen Cushman

"Ghost Hawk is a treasure.... Beautifully written, vivid with its manifest love for the land, it is a story of suffering and survival, both tragic and heroic."

starred review Publishers Weekly

*"Well-researched and elegant historical fantasy... Cooper demonstrates, as Little Hawk says, “Change is made by the voice of one person at a time.

Philip Pullman

Ghost Hawk is the work of a writer with great imaginative power and long-practiced narrative skill. I was swept up in the story, shocked, moved, and enthralled - and completely convinced by the historical background. I haven't read anything better for a long time."

Kirkus Reviews

"[A] sensitive portrayal of an unusual friendship."

William Alexander

"Susan Cooper has asked the ghosts of our shared history to sing. And when she asks, they always do."

School Library Journal

"A beautifully written story."

The Horn Book

"Cooper here demonstrates that there’s plenty of magic left in her pen, delivering a powerful and memorable novel."

Kirkus Reviews

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)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171002893
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	08/27/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

Read an Excerpt

Ghost Hawk

He had left his canoe in the river, tied to a branch of a low-growing cherry tree. Now there was green marshland ahead of him, all round the river’s last slow curve. He pushed his way through waist-high grass toward one of the three high places in the marshland, where trees grew. They were islands of trees, never visited; the duck hunters went only to the marsh. He had chosen this place months ago, and now was the day to come back.

In a squawking flurry two ducks erupted ahead of him, flying low, but his bow stayed on his back; he would not hunt till later, on the way home. He reached the trees—a tangle of pin oak and cherry, sumac and hickory, juniper and birch—and threaded his way through the grabbing branches to the two rocks that marked the tree he had chosen. There it still was, beside the rocks, still the proper shape: the small bitternut hickory tree with its twin leading stems growing in a slender V.

He gave the tree a respectful greeting, and explained what he was about to do.

The woven birch-bark pouch was heavy round his neck. He took out the stone blade, a long, notched rectangle of flint with one edge chipped to a fine sharpness. This blade had belonged to the tomahawk used by his father and his grandfather, until its handle broke; nobody knew where it had come from or when it was made. It was very precious to him.

Carefully he fitted the blade into the cleft between the tree’s two slim branches, twisting them together above it. Then, with tough strands of deer sinew from his pouch, he bound the joined branches tightly above the stone—so tightly that they would grow together as the years went by, enclosing the blade.

To make a tomahawk for your son, you needed the stone blade, and the wooden shaft, and time.

In my father’s day, there was still time.

When he’d finished his binding, he thanked the small tree, and gave it good wishes to grow straight and strong.

Then he went back across the marshland to his canoe. On the way he shot three ducks, for the feast celebrating the arrival of the baby son who had been born early that day.

I was that son. Because Flying Hawk was my father, the name they were giving me was Little Hawk.

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