Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper

Synopsis

Ghost Hawk is about the experiences of two young men named Little Hawk and John Wakeley, who grow up in different environments yet are trapped in the same conflict between the Englishmen and the Indians in the American Indian Wars.

Plot Summary

The story began when a Indian man took out a tomahawk blade and twisted two slim branches from a small bitternut hickory tree on a salt marsh around the blade. Eleven years later, the same man chopped down the same tree and gave the finished tomahawk to his son, Little Hawk. He informed him that he was going to go through a ritual that required him to survive three months in the woods alone. When he returns, Little Hawk will finally prove himself as a man. The tomahawk is one of the things that he could bring with him during the ritual. Three other boys will also be doing the same as Little Hawk. After the three solitary months, Little Hawk found his way back home in triumph just to discover that his whole village is dead. His grandmother, Suncatcher, is the only one in the village. The two of them carried on with their lives in a new village. When spring came, two Englishmen and a seven-year-old boy arrived with an Indian translator named Squanto. The boy crept away from his father while they were being taught how to fish and played with other children. The boy told his name to Little Hawk. His name was John Wakeley. Soon, the white men came back and brought the boy away. About three years later, Little Hawk and Leaping Turtle were chosen to be runners. Runners brought messages to and from the Indian sachem’s home. Halfway through their journey, they heard screams. Little Hawk ran toward them and saw a white man lying crushed under a big tree and another man trapped by his leg u...

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...ocked into silence, staring at [Little Hawk]’s shattered chest and the bright blood, and at [his] face with the wide open eyes that could no longer see.” I can’t relate with Little Hawk either, because he had to survive three months in the woods. I don’t even know how to make a fire, yet survive every cold night for three months. But I can relate to John when he believed something but other people believed something else. This book affected me because it changed my view of the first settlers of America. At first, I thought they were awesome and that the Indians were terrifying. After this book, I have a negative view towards the English. I would recommend this book to mainly teenagers and up because I don’t seem to relate much to the characters. Overall, this is a pretty good book and I would read more of the history of the Indians and the first settlers of America.