Customer Reviews

Arilla Sun Down

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If you like stories about teenager's struggling with difficulties in life that you learn from, you will love this book. This book does not go in chronological order it is told in little snippets of a little girls memory. Arilla who is trying to find her identity but is held back because of her crazy brother and being interracial. Her mother is African American and her father is Indian, so she wants to have an Indian name to show her place in the Indian community. When she goes to visit her father's family, she is called Moon. Ordinarily, she lives in the white community, but people talk about her family because they are interracial. She is trying to live a normal 12-year-old's existence until an accident happens that will forever change her life. Her brother Sun is wounded badly when he falls off horse they are riding together. She must save him and all the while she is saying Arilla, Sun is down on the ground.

Read this intriguing, heartwarming, exciting, powerful, meaningful selection, and it will show what love, hate and life is really all about.

Arilla Sun Down is the Virginia Hamilton book I reread the most. I read it first when I was a teacher of seventh graders; I read it when my children were in seventh grade; I always read it when I give book talks about children's books; I read it also when I am working with Native American books with students. I often read it aloud with students just to get them involved in it; the first part is a little different from most books; I like the way the words flow. Kids like the sibling rivalry of Arilla and her brother. I like the fact that Arilla comes from a home in which the mother is Native American and the father is African American--the bi-racial aspect. It's hard to find books with interracial families; this is one of the few and one of the best--if not the best. My female students like the parts about horses; my male students like the parts about Sun (Arilla's brother) finding his identity, being assertive when the townspeople are prejudiced against his family. All of my students like the boy-girl relationships and friendships. I recently introduced this book in my teachers book club. We read books that are for children or adolescents--but also for adults. They are books for everyone, just good books. I don't think Arilla Sun Down is a children's book; it's a book that children might read, if adults introduce them to it. Mostly it's a book that focuses on a family and particularly on the children in that family. This book is interesting because it reacquaints adults with their growing up years and tells us more about life itself at any age.

If you like stories about the hardships of a teenage girl, then you'll like this book. This book jumps around a lot and does not stary in order of events but it is still pretty good. The reason for all the jumping around is because the events are memories of Arilla, a 12-year-old girl. Arilla trys to find herself but can't because of her older brother Jack Sun Run. Arilla is always in her brother's shadow and she can't stand it. But at the end of the book that all changes. Arilla becomes the one on center stage. As she saves her brother's life she realizes that she had finally found her self, and all it took was a little time.

If you like stories about the hardships of a teenage girl, then you'll like this book. This book jumps around a lot and does not stay in order of events but it is still pretty good. The reason for all the jumping around is because the events are memories of Arilla, a 12-year-old girl. Arilla try's to find herself but can't because of her older brother Jack Sun Run. Arilla is always in her brother's shadow and she can't stand it. Towards the end of the book that all changes because Arilla becomes the one on center stage, instead of her brother. As she saves her brother's life she realizes that she had finally found herself, and all it took was a little time.

This is a subtle, moving story of a love/hate relationship between a twelve-year-old girl and her older brother. Arilla idolizes Jack, and at the same time resents and fears him. Seen through Arilla's eyes, Jack takes on an almost superhuman cast, thought more sophisticated readers will be able to see the vulnerabilities that underlie Jack's brave "Amerind" persona. Arilla's relationships with her parents are complex and multilayered, as are the relationships among Jack and the parents. There are no easy answers or obvious resolution in this novel, only the furthering of a young girl's maturity and understanding of the people around her.

"Arilla Sun Down" is marketed as a children's novel; the preteen protagonist should make it most appealing to middle schoolers. However, this apparent target audience may find this book difficult, if not impossible, to follow. The novel unfolds in a series of incidents, flashbacks, and memories, which are indicated only by subtle textual clues. Numerous details and several important plot points are implied rather than directly stated. There are reasonably intelligent adults I've known who don't have the literary sophistication to pluck the relevant details out of a text like this and draw the necessary inferences. Few middle schoolers will have the reading comprehension skills, or the patience.

What really gets on my nerves is. That Hamilton has this awful habit. Of chopping up sentences into fragments for no apparent reason. I'm all for literary license, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to some of the sentence breaks in this novel. Poetic prose in a novel should serve to illuminate the characters' perceptions and experience, not draw attention to itself; the language in this book is often too self-conscious and awkward. This is unfortunate, because there are some truly beautiful passages of description ("All of the smells hang above the ridges and then seep down through the dark like a full-blown calamity") and insight ("it's the oddest feeling to go by a house that was yours once and have it not bother you particularly") that spotlight Hamilton's literary gifts. It's just too bad we have to wade through pages of sentences like "Now moves he and holding up stick through a fish" and "I can hardly stand the way it feels so real funny at first" to find them.

If you like stories about the hardships of a teenage girl, then you'll like this book. This book jumps around a lot and does not stay in order of events but it is still pretty good. The reason for all the jumping around is because the events are memories of Arilla, a 12-year-old girl. Arilla try's to find herself but can't because of her older brother Jack Sun Run. Arilla is always in her brother's shadow and she can't stand it. Towards the end of the book that all changes because Arilla becomes the one on center stage, instead of her brother. As she saves her brother's life she realizes that she had finally found herself, and all it took was a little time.