Customer Reviews

The Swamp Robber (Sugar Creek Gang, Book 1)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a great one to start off bed time reading with your kids. I have never seen a 7 year old sit still that long. It is the first time he was ever excited about going to bed. We just finished it and I am ordering the next in the series. It is a must read for anyone who wants to find a way to spend more time with their kids or wants to incourage them to read.

I am a mom to 5 boys and our family has been hooked on the adventures of the Sugar Creek Gang for a few years now! We originally discovered the stories through an awesome set of cassette tapes. The books were dramatized for an radio series by Paul Ramseyer of Northwestern College Radio in Minnesota and our family is now a part of the ministry, helping to produce the audio series for families to enjoy at home! Do you want your children to learn gentle lessons of courage, faith & friendship on THEIR level? Do you want to see real growth in their character? The stories are fun adventures with the truth of God's plans woven skillfully throughout. See the world through the eyes of Bill Collins, a freckle-faced, firey-tempered red head. You'll enjoy Bill's antics and the barefoot fun of all the boys in the "gang"! (As a side note, I do recommend the books be read in order. They tell an ongoing story from beginning to end.) From the back of the tapes: "Step back in time... to one-room schoolhouses, hot summer days of fishing, fun and barefoot boys. Sugar Creek Gang stories engage the imagination and draw a child's heart into a living relationship with God! Hymns, scripture verses, nature lore, poetry; sensitivity toward the disabled, the oppressed... and the courage and confidence to share the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ." --- Just the right recipe for training up a child!

Sugar Creek Gang: The Swamp Robber by Paul Hutchens

William Jasper "Bill" Collins and his five friends are growing up in a small rural town. Bill and his friend Roy "Dragonfly" Gilbert discover a hidden disguise while out fishing one summer afternoon. The next day, police report a bank robber on the loose and possibly in the area. Bill and Dragonfly get together with their Sugar Creek Gang--Little Jimmy Foote, Big Jim, Leslie "Poetry" Thompson, and Daniel "Circus" Browne--to discuss what they can do about it. Mix in a missing old man from the hills, his long-lost nephew, and the resident drunk and it adds up to quite an adventure for a group of boys, all but one under the age of twelve.

Overall, this is a fun and easy read. I realize this is a Christian book, but still I think it weighs a little heavy on the preachy side. I would recommend The Swamp Robber by Paul Hutchens to any of my friends with boys or girls ages 8-12.

this book is about a 12 year old boy that lives in a little town adn there are 5 boys that are in that town that they call there selves the sugar creek gang they like to come to a mistery of some cind and the allways do. so they were out brian him and his brother they were fishing and all the sudden they were swiming and then all the sudden a guy that just ascappeed from the jell hade been hiding in the forset and he happennd to sneek up on them and you can see if they can handel it or not if they turn him in or they all get killed read the book and find out I suddgest this book for allmost all teenagers. I personly thik that it was a great mistery book and had plenty of action and I like the sugar creek gang myself well I cant tell you a hole lot because that would give the bok away so I think it is a good book so I would just give it a try

Nice to have another option for a chapter book series for boys. We also buy Magic Tree House books.

My brother got the whole serios and im'e on Mystery Cave.It is very inspiring and teaches children the lesson of "sowing and reaping" hope you enjoy it

On one level, "The Sugar Creek Gang" (original title) is a typical, slightly over-the-top boys' yarn of adventure. But unless the current paperbacks have been heavily edited, the books are crammed with mini-sermons and asides that cram evangelical Christianity down the reader's throat, as well as some comments that would be considered racist today. It is entirely possible to write a book that will appeal to children and present Christian values more subtly ("The Chronicles of Narnia", for example). But Hutchens is apparently not one for subtlety.