Ghost Hawk

  • Type: Books
  • By: Susan Cooper
  • Age Category: Children
  • Genre: Historical Fiction
  • Recommended by: Tom S.
  • ISBN/UPC: 9781442481411
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The best book about Colonial America I've ever read.

There are a number of excellent children’s books about the historical period that extends from the time of first European contact up to and including the American Revolution, but even among such worthy titles as The Winter People, My Brother Sam is Dead, or A Break With Charity, this book stands out.
 
Here, Susan Cooper has done nothing less than re-create the world of New England in the 1660’s and 1670’s as experienced by Little Hawk, a young Pokanoket man, and his English friend John Wakely.  The reader is immersed in all aspects of life – both English and Native American.  Not just the day-to-day aspects of physical existence, but the cultural and spiritual underpinnings that give meaning to all of it.  There are no cardboard heroes or mustache-twirling villains here (though there are heroes and villains.)  Instead, we are treated to fully developed characters with motivations, strengths, and weaknesses we can recognize – if not always sympathize with.
 
Don’t be put off by the fact that Little Hawk, our narrator, tells the second half of the story as an observer from the spirit world.  This is historical fiction at its best.