Black Hawk

My son absolutely loved this book. He said was fast paced and wonderful. He highly recommends this book to everyone.

Black Hawk is definitely a book I will read again in the future. The descriptions are perfect and the incorporated history within it allows me to read not only history, but also a story. I believe that this book is perfect for ages 12 and up, although some parts of the book may be unclear as to what is going on, especially for younger children. As a sixth grader, I adored this book and recommend it to anybody who enjoys reading history and stories about nature and the great outdoors.

Everytime we finish one of the suggested history read alouds, we always say…”that was so awesome!!!”

But when we started Blackhawk, my oldest daughter was not enthused. She didnt like the idea of such a barbaric story. But after reading this book, we all agreed…”that was sooo awesome!” And it was a true account, which made the book even more spectacular. There is no way to finish this book and not begin to seriously question everything you have learned about the white man and Native American struggle. This book was full of every emotion and I cant wait to read it again with my younger kids.

This fabulous book challenged our assumptions, softened our hearts, and inspired us. My 8yr and 6yr were hungry for more. Even my husband was caught up in the story and insisted we wait for him to join our reading time.

Read with caution with younger audiences. This book came with our book pack for year 3 history. It does a beautiful job at showing Native American life and their culture and the struggles they faced. It is eye opening and a great read for students to see how Native Americans lived and how they felt and dealt with internal struggles and the difficulties they faced during this time period. For older students the themes in this book truly open up great communication about life back then and how there is true internal conflict between right and wrong. This is a definite read for older children. These topics and historical studies are vital to a real view of history and is a great eye opening book for older students to read and talk about. It is absolutely real and raw. However for younger more sensitive audiences I would proceed with caution. While I am sure some younger children would be completely fine with this book I wish there had been a more in depth review for me to read before starting this book with my 1st grader. This book has a lot of older themes like descriptive killing, war scenes and scalping and collecting scalps on the ends of spears. The war scenes do use language that could be scary to younger children and describes the Indians cutting throats and piles of dead bodies during the wars between the other tribes. The main character of the book does kill and take scalps. While it is an internal struggle for him and he regrets his actions afterwards it does describe his killing others in the book. There is also a scene where alcohol is brought to the Native American village by outsiders and one of the Native Americans squaw is kissed without her consent. And the drunk man that does this to her brushes it off as no big deal when her Native American husband gets angry about it. This book is included in the year 3 history pack and advertised as appropriate for 1st grade through 12th which could be misleading if you have a sensitive younger elementary student.