Kentucky Frontiersmen: The Adventures of Henry Ware, Hunter and Border Fighter [Hardcover]

Joseph A. Altsheler (Author), Nathaniel Kenton (Editor), Todd Doney (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1989 | Age Level: 11 and up

This thrilling adventure novel captures the excitement and challenge faced by the brave men and women who crossed the mountains to carve a new life out of the dense frontier wilderness. Kentucky Frontiersmen is the story of young Henry Ware, whose family settles in Kain-tuck-ee, heart of the Shawnee and Wyandot hunting grounds. Born to the outdoors, Henry masters the forest skills and cunning of the Indians, and leads the battle to save the new pioneer settlement.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-10-- In the tradition of heroic figures, young Henry Ware is taller, stronger, more honest, and more cunning than other men. Just 15 when his family leaves colonial Maryland for the uncharted lands of Kentucky, Henry is overwhelmingly attracted to life in the wilderness and uniquely adept at learning the lessons necessary for survival in it. When he is captured by an Indian hunting party from the northwest, Henry adapts so totally to Indian life that Chief Black Cloud adopts him. Much later, a reawakened sense of duty to his family compels Henry to return home with warning of an impending Shawnee attack. His masterful assimilation of Indian skills with a long hunter's rifle expertise make him a legendary warrior within the tribe, a savior to the settlement, and an undefeatable spirit enemy to the Shawnee adversaries. The romantic-style narrative draws tight the tensions of battle while magnifying the virtues of its hero and glorifying the primeval qualities of the wilderness. Indian warriors are depicted as formidable, if primitive, foes, equal to all but Henry Ware. Women, however, are mentioned only fleetingly; the dramatic excitement of Altsheler's Kentucky frontier is reserved for men only. His is a tale for boys who would appreciate also such myth-makers as Howard Pyle, Jane Porter, and James Fennimore Cooper. --Katharine Bruner, Brown Middle School, Harrison, Tenn.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 11 and up
  
• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: Voyageur Publishing Company (TN); Revised edition (February 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0929146018
• ISBN-13: 978-0929146010
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,062,301 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Altsheler: Great American Author, February 18, 2001

By 

Tom Haury (Los Altos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kentucky Frontiersmen: The Adventures of Henry Ware, Hunter and Border Fighter (Hardcover)

Altsheler can paint a picture with words like no other author can. He is so descriptive with his words that you feel that you are right there in the midst of the story with the same feelings and senses as the protagonist, Henry Ware.

The Kentucky Frontiersmen is a newer version of the same book as the "The Young Trailers" that Altsheler wrote in the late 1800"s except a more modern version. The difference being that a lot of the slang is taken out and replaced with more modern words, there are illustrations and I believe that the print is larger.

I first read books from the "Young Trailer Series" back in the 50's when I was in grade school and they had a great influence on my life. I recently ordered some of the books from the Altsheler series from Amazon.com and enjoyed them again immensely. The theme represented throughout the series was the constant struggle to be the best and to be ready and prepared to prove it at anytime or it could cost an early Kentucky settler his life was a lesson that I took with me into competitive situations like sports, academics and the business world.

The "Kentucky Frontiersmen" teaches values that are so important especially to growing children that deal with responsibility, hard work, integrity, intelligence and the special type of people that built this country.

Every resident of Kentucky should read these books because historically they give an accurate view of what Kentucky was like back in the early days of settlement. What a special place Kentucky must have been and I'm sure, still is.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When Kentucky was wilderness., November 8, 2007

By 

Frank Bunyard (Elk Grove, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Kentucky Frontiersmen: The Adventures of Henry Ware, Hunter and Border Fighter (Hardcover)

Sixty years ago when I first read this book it was titled The Young Trailers. I was ten years old. I'm delighted to find it still in print. It is still an exciting and educational read.

I grew up in a small town in the Pacific Northwest . Our little library carried all eight volumes of this frontier adventure series, of which The Young Trailers was the first episode. For several years I read and reread these marvelous stories. They made an indelible impression upon my mind and heart, and basically formed my image of America.

Author Joseph Altsheler was a newspaperman and prolific writer of romances and adventure stories of the American frontier. (The latter for readers of grades six through ten.) He was a knowledgeable man, well read in history, archeology, and botany (to mention but a few of his interests). He managed to weave his broad field of knowledge so skillfully into the narratives of his stories that the reader is unaware that he/she is being educated as well as entertained. He was a very successful and famous writer in the early 1900s.

Kentucky Frontiersman is written in Altsheler's usual master story teller, vivid, manner. Vivid is the key word here. Altsheler is a natural "yarn spinner". We experience the primordial landscape through the acute senses of the young hero, Henry Ware, a teen-ager who is keenly perceptive of the unspoiled verdant forests, clear streams, mighty rivers, deep caves and abundant flora and fauna of frontier Kentucky. (There are scenes of action, suspense, violence and death; but written appropriately for the age level.)

Without giving the plot away, there are just two points worth mentioning.

First is the sensible way Alsheler handles the irreconcilable confrontation with the Indians over the land. The Indians are not presented as inferior in any way to the Caucasian settlers. In fact the hero is captured by an Indian tribe and finds the primitive culture more amenable to his inner affinity than his settler upbringing. He happily "goes Native" and finds a deep spiritual affinity and unity with nature while living with the Indians.

Second, and importantly, Altsheler portrays in dramatic form the theory put forward by his contemporary, historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" was published in 1893, when Altsheler was age 31. Altsheler must have been familiar with Turner's work. Turner's thesis was that the spirit and success of the United States is directly tied to the country's westward expansion. According to Turner, the forging of the unique and rugged American identity occurred at the juncture between the civilization of settlement and the savagery of wilderness. This produced a new type of citizen - one with the power to tame the wild and one upon whom the wild had conferred strength and individuality.

The six volume set of The Young Trailers should be on the library shelves of all schools for grades six through ten. I know of no other comparable literature that conveys this important part of American history in such an accessible form for our young Americans. It is a part of American culture that is being lost, as our young citizens are being overwhelmed by trivia and gadgetry.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for teen boys!, January 7, 2008

By 

J. Appert "book lover" (Bothell, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kentucky Frontiersmen: The Adventures of Henry Ware, Hunter and Border Fighter (Hardcover)

My husband read this book when he was 12 and now that he is 69 he still remembers the story. I think that this speaks for itself, this is a long time to remember a book. It is a great book for history and adventure.