Allan W. EckertCritiques

When his family's nemesis, the evil trapper George Burton, suddenly reappears after a long absence, young Ben MacDonald runs off in fright and soon finds himself being whisked down the Red River in a rowboat without any oars. His father and brother, finding Ben gone and convinced that Burton has gotten him, set off on a desperate search. Meanwhile, Ben drifts into Lake Winnipeg and the home of the Cree tribe, whom he has been brought up to fear.

Wow, this book. It was a bit rough going at first. Due to the age of the story, the way people talk felt awkward, the background explanation of the boy’s family felt over-explained in a rather stiff way. But once I got into the real part of the story, I was blown away. Especially by the ending. Very traumatic, bittersweet and delightful all at the same time. It’s about a boy who has a secret ability- he can transfer his consciousness into any animal nearby. There’s no element of magic (why I tagged this one as ‘speculative fiction’) it’s just something he’s always been able to do. He can taste, hear, smell, feel every sensation the animal experiences- including exhilaration, fear, pain, etc- but not control them at all. The boy has tried to share his experiences with his parents, what he feels and learns when spending minutes to hours as an animal- but they think he’s daydreaming and brush it off, then get impatient that he doesn’t give up the idea, then get concerned that there’s something wrong with him mentally or emotionally. They go away on a planned trip and leave him on a horse farm the mother’s friend owns. The boy has never been around horses before and he’s fascinated by them- and of course he goes inside them (as he calls the phenomenon). He has to be careful to keep what he’s doing hidden from other people, having learned from reactions not only by his parents but also his best friend, that nobody understands this, people make fun of him, avoid him, or are suspicious of his activities. However when a veterinarian visits the farm, the boy is intrigued by his work and hangs around watching. He’s able of course to feel what the animals do, and tries to hint at the vet what’s wrong if the problem is not found. This works for a while but it starts to get more difficult to hide his ability, the vet (who becomes a close mentor, almost a father figure) starts to get suspicious. And then a prized horse in the barn falls deadly ill, but nobody knows except our protagonist. He tries to do something, but it all goes terribly wrong . . . leading to an almost tragedy.

I won’t say more in case someone actually wants to read this. If you have a deep interest in animals, or ever daydreamed (like I did as a kid) about being able to fly like a bird, run as fast as a horse, walk quietly in the night as a cat seeing everything clearly . . . this book will become an instant favorite. There was so much love of nature woven into the story, and fantastic details about how wild animals live their lives, even new things the boy discovered about them (but then couldn’t tell anybody how he’d learned it). This is the greatest by Eckert I’ve read so far- even tops Incident at Hawk’s Hill, which has always been steadfastly among the best books ever, in my mind.

From the same author of Incident at Hawk’s Hill (a book loved as a kid) Story of a wild cat, offspring of a domestic cat and a male bobcat. Have to say right off the bat, there’s a lot of brutality, starting with a man trying to drown a mother housecat and her kittens. The protagonist of the story, the crossbreed himself, is the sole survivor when the log his mother denned in gets swept down a river in a flood. He’s exhausted, half frozen and near starved when rescued by a kid who’s out fishing. The boy knows his father hates cats (especially wild ones) so he hides the kitten in a shed on their property. Raises the crossbreed, names it Yowler, and even successfully teaches it to hunt. Eventually the boy’s father discovers the cat and things go badly. The boy runs away with Yowler but they get separated- Yowler is on his own in the wild, where he’d do okay really- there’s pages and pages describing his successful hunting forays- but he runs into trouble when is chased by hounds, caught by disreputable men who put him in staged fights with dogs, and after escaping, gets caught by a steel trap... Through his misadventures Yowler ends up far south of his normal territory, encountering animals he’s never seen before- armadillos, freshwater crocodiles, a wolf. Also has run-ins with lynx and bobcats- mates with several females but since he’s a hybrid himself, there are never any young. And in one improbable but very sweet encounter, he temporarily adopts an orphaned bobcat kitten. He travels north whenever he gets the chance, eventually finding his way back to his birthplace and even the site where the boy had raised him in the shed. I liked this story, even if some parts of it were particularly gruesome (the fights with dogs in that people bet on) or a bit unlikely (adopting the kitten himself). Dubious if a domestic cat / bobcat cross actually is a thing, plus some of the behavior in here isn't realistic, but I enjoyed it regardless.

This book wonderfully describes the life of the Shawnee War Chief, Tecumseh. Step back in time and become engulfed in history.

Quite engaging, and mostly historical (with large grains of salt).

Allan Eckert writes books about the early years of America and her westward expansion at the expense of the many Indian tribes that the white people came into contact with. His research is extensive and his books paint a vivid picture of America’s frontier and the characters, both white and Indian, that shaped this land.

In this book Eckert details the life of Blue Jacket, a famous warrior of the Shawnees in the late 1700s. The surprise here is that he was, according the Eckert, a white man who was captured when he was seventeen. He took to the Indian way of life easily, married and raised a family, went to war and fought with bravery and honor. His hatred of white people was well documented. Blue Jacket became known as a strategist, and a strong war chief who led his people to victory on a few occasions.

Although Eckert seems to have researched this story extensively, his assertion about Blue Jacket is not accepted by all. Eckert claims that Blue Jacket was Marmaduke Van Swearingen, who was being bullied by his older brothers and unhappy at home. He elected to go with the Indians in exchange for his younger brothers freedom. I have read other books and articles that also offer the fact that Blue Jacket was a white captive who became an important leader of the Shawnee tribe, but whatever the truth, this was a fascinating story about a Shawnee warrior who both fought and worked hard to maintain their way of life, their culture and their lands.

fairly easy beach read, gifted by Marty and Pam as we headed to the beach (they are big fans of this kind of literature)

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This book is so full of shit. I don't understand how this guy got away with it for all those years.

Although this book received a Newbery Honor when it was published, you probably haven’t heard of it. The cover most likely won’t convince you to pick it up. Even the introduction might persuade you that it’s too slow to finish. But once you’ve gotten into the story, you may have a hard time putting it down until you’ve blown all the way through the last page.

Ben is a boy who doesn’t do well with people. This worries his family, especially his father, who simply cannot understand why his youngest son insists on following animals around, mimicking their noises and movements perfectly. When Ben finds himself lost on the prairie near his house, he must make a deep connection with a dangerous predator if he wants to survive. What happens to both of them and how it affects the other characters is almost unbelievable, even to Ben, and will leave a deep impression on you after you close the book.

This is a good choice for readers who like outdoor adventures (think Gary Paulsen) and stories about fathers and sons. It’s also for readers who can stomach detailed descriptions of some of the more gruesome things that happen in nature.

The Crossbred
by Allan W. Eckert
1968
4.0/5.0

Whoa!
Beautiful but brutal, this was a difficult book.
A young boy shows his father a litter of kittens he found in their farm. The father puts them in a bag, ties it to a rock and throws it in the deep end of a river. Only the mother survives. She is followed and eventually forced to mate with a wild bobcat. The bobcat helps her by hunting and leaving food near the area she has her kittens. The bobcat is hunted and killed, the mother is on her own. She learns to fight for her existence, hunt and kill for food and where to hide when in danger. This is her story.
It is a true representation of the life of a wild cat, told in detail. The animal/animal fighting is difficult, but a necessary act in the wild.
Still, it was hard to read, esp. in such detail.
The prevalence of human violence and animal mauling each other for food were a detailed and recurring theme in this book.
It is very well written, but very brutal, esp for a middle grade novel.
Thanks to Jackie, for this book!

Allan W. Eckert is an expert chronicler of America’s turbulent frontier history. He has written a number of books that detail the western expansion and in Twilight of Empire he focuses on the life of War Chief Black Hawk who strove to hold back the white people from claiming the ancestral home of the Fox and Sac tribes. This homeland was the rich land of the northern Mississippi River that was destined to become known as the state of Illinois.

This is a book that I needed to read with two bookmarks, one to mark my reading place and another to allow me to follow the author’s amplification notes at the back of the book. Each event and detail has been painstakingly researched. Every character in this sweeping epic is drawn from actual history and their every action actually happened. Twilight of Empire is part of this author’s Winning of America series which I had read all but this book quite a few years ago. I was very happy to have found this book at a second hand store so that I could complete my read of this fascinating series.

Black Hawk was an extraordinary man, he had a life-long hatred for the Americans, who once burned his home village. As settlers and soldiers arrive in this contested land, a savage conflict is ignited. This non-fiction historical read makes for a vivid, exciting and interesting reading experience that is made all the more dramatic by the knowledge that all of this actually happened.

Eckert provides us with a sweeping historical epic set during the American colonial period--focusing on the French and Indian Wars. In his own words, he writes "narrative history" which uses techniques usually reserved for fiction: imagined dialog and imputed emotions. He claims the dialog and emotions come from letters, diaries, newspaper articles and other primary sources; many of which are also quoted in his book. Like all good history, Eckert provides chapter notes and an extensive bibliography. Highly recommended for colonial history buffs.

The critically acclaimed, award-winning author of A Sorrow in Our Heart brings to life an event that marked a major turning point in the history of the American frontier--the settling of the Ohio River Valley. "Compelling reading--an epic narrative history."--Publishers Weekly.

Billed as a tale in the vein of Chronicles of Narnia, and dedicated to CS Lewis. Nice story, but not on the scale of Narnia. Some lovely color plates to illustrate it, though.

A shy, lonely 6-year-old wanders into the Canadian prairie and spends a summer under the protection of a badger

Frontier life in the early 19th century, featuring the Shawnee

A narrative about the rapid decline and extinction of the passenger pigeon. It is fiction based on fact and told from the perspective of two individual birds. The concept is original, daring, and it holds your interest. Considering the pigeons declined in population from multiple billions to one individual within a single human lifetime, the story is necessarily sad; a steady drumbeat of death coming from the many dangers the species faced.

The Frontiersmen is incredibly immersive, often reading like a novel bringing to life the old frontier of Ohio and Kentucky from about 1774 to 1810, the bloody period when it was settled by Americans and the Indians were pushed west (or dead). Despite it's strong narrative it's also a history and reliable for the most part. Published in 1967, Allan W. Eckert used creative non-fiction techniques before the style was respectable and so he has taken some flak for accuracy, and indeed there are some significant goofs - for example Blue Jacket was probably not white. Even if a few tales may be frontier legend they are archetypal and thus still of value. If not Blue Jacket there were other whites who went 'native'.

As an avid outdoor adventure/history reader it's embarrassing how much I know about, say, Antarctica, yet so little about the history of the land I live in and around so this book is a reminder one doesn't need travel far to find great adventure.½

to my mind, Tecumseh and Abraham Lincoln are unique examples of the "Self-made Man", the American ideal. The fact that one was white and the other Indian pale in comparison to their mutual achievement of attaining political power and then using it for the benefit of their people as a whole, and rising above the prejudices of their time, and their communities. The life of Tecumseh has been researched by Alan Eckert, as he said three times, once for his book "The frontiersmen", again for "Gateway to Empitr", and again for this purpose-built biography. Each time discarding received information and substituting stuff arising from better sources. This is the final word on the man whose life was tragically cut short by the battle on the Thames river in Ontario. Had he survived for the peace negotiations at the end of the war of 1812, Indians everywhere in America, would have been better off.
This book is about how much the right man can accomplish in the political arena, with only talent.
The book also includes material that really changed my concept of Simon Girty, who has been badly maligned by Zane Grey, in his acts of filial piety. Read it, and understand what a tragedy it was, that Lincoln and Tecumseh never met....one of the interesting "What ifs?..." of history.½

Mostly straight historical account of America's first and most prolific serial killer; Herman W. Mudgett, aka Howard Henry Holmes (among numerous other aliases). Like Eckert's other works, dialogue and thought are invented to fit the known facts. In a twist that only a made-for-TV movie could love, Holmes was convicted of a single murder; one that he may well have been innocent of.½

Though this book is often described as an historical novel it is not. What Eckert has done (For the seventh time!), is place words that are reported in the texts consulted as being received in dialogue, as dialogue between quotation marks, as is done in fiction. This narrative technique, no odder than the made-up speeches used by Classical historians to disguise their analysis of the stances evident in the historical actions of their time, lends an immediacy to the text that makes for great reading, and greater retention of the points he advances in his history of the Ohio river valley, than the unrelieved block text of most historical accounts. I'm very fond of his work, and if you check the footnotes that usually take up the last 20% of his volumes, you will see that he has snuck a great deal of research and analysis into your narrative-loving minds.
This work deals with a lot of characters that he researched while creating his more straight forward volumes. There's more autobiography in this book, and many lovable characters, familiar from their novelizing in the pages of Zane grey's Ohio novels. I'm glad Louis Wetzel was a real person, though a great deal more dodgy than Zane Grey's iconic figure.

this is a sad, sad, book. The final flare-up of Indian fighting in the "Old Northwest". We even get to see Abraham Lincoln in a early adventure. Black Hawk and his tribe of Fox and Saux indians are hounded to their eventual destruction by the Indian-War Machine. directed from the east, and having no trouble at all with this small people. After this, there's not much left of Eckert's grand narrative, and we can get ready for the Civil war, if we are looking for thrills. It's a book abut a lost cause. The eventual triumph of William Henry Harrison blows no trumpets for me.½

Alan Eckert has finished his fifth book in the "Narratives of America" series, and it's as good as the others. The focus is on Chicago and the surrounding area, a portage of tremendous importance that has so far not intruded on my consciousness. I knew it was important to communications but its importance prior to the railroads didn't register. You can canoe from Lake Michigan into the Mississippi system with very little work. the Indians knew it, and once, they burned the place down, in 1812, the 15th of August.They also attacked and destroyed the American refugees evacuating the place. It's a classic of mis-communication .

The destruction of the Iroquois in the American Revolution is carefully laid out in this, the Fourth volume of Eckert's Narratives of America series. The relentless aggression of the American colonists has its final reward in the attacks on the tribal towns under General Sullivan in 1779. Though the people of the long house, whose organization is in some ways a model for the relations between states and the USA's federal government, were able to regather themselves in Canada, the destruction of their homeland was completed then. These works aren't fiction, and the journals of twenty-six participants are cited in the bibliography. There are also footnotes appended to each chapter for easier reference. Eckert was a major figure in the deconstruction of a major part of the "Myth of the American Frontier".