Customer Reviews

Sweetgrass (Paperstar Book)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had to read 2 books over the summer for school I picked 1 from the that the title made me want to read more about it.So I picked SWEETGRASS. Now this book is so good. It shows how 15 year old Sweetgrass belives that she is ready to be married.BUT she can't get married because her father doesnt think she is mature enough so...of course she has to show her maturity to her dad so she can marry EAGLE-SUN her 1 true love. So how does she get to show her maturity? Does she get to marry EAGLE-SUN? Read it to find Out! (and its not that long! )

Sweetgrass is a 15 year old Blackfoot Indian girl who is waiting to be married. She is so anxious to be married because she is the oldest girl in her tribe to not be married yet.

She did many tasks to show her father that she was woman enought to marry her love, Eagle Sun. Sweetgrass skinned and tanned the hides from the buffalo her brother, Otter, had shot. She worked very hard getting the hides ready for sleeping blankets. During the summer, Sweetgrass also picked many berries for the winter. In the end, Sweetgrass's father decides whether or not she is woamn and ready to marry Eagle Sun.

Sweetgrass has courage and strives to stay alive and keep her family alive during a smallpox epidemic that came from the white man. She is a good person. She belived in herelf and that got her through some other tight situations in the book as well.

This book was so good I couldn't put it down! I recomended it to my best friends(C.B.& M.C.) and they loved this book too. This book was written with so much feeling and emotion! I loved it! One of my favourite children's books of all time!

Sweetgrass is a wonderful story about a young Native American girl named Sweetgrass. Sweetgrass feels that no one in her Blackfoot tribe takes her seriously. She wants to prove her to father and her almost-mother that she is ready to get married. Her father and her almost-mother do not feel she is mature enough. However, during the hard winter Sweetgrass is forced to become a woman. Smallpox becomes a severe threat to her family and her tribe. Sweetgrass helps to nurse her family and helps them to overcome death. I recommend this book because it describes Native American culture in a way that is beneficial to the reader. It is full of excitement and suspense, which allows the reader to become fully involved. It is a great book for anyone!

Sweetgrass, a phenomenal book, by Jan Hudson is a suspenseful and informative book. Sweetgrass, a Native American teenager, describes her everyday life in such a way that you learn a lot about Native American lifestyle. All through the book, Sweetgrass experiences difficulties, which she deals with in different ways. When Sweetgrass's mother falls into a depression over her dead baby, Sweetgrass has to "grow up" and become the new mother in a matter of hours. While acting as "mother", the disease, smallpox hits her tribe and Sweetgrass has to help those with smallpox, while caring for the rest of her family and proving to her father that she is mature enough to marry.

I recommend this book because it teaches you a lot about Native American culture and because it is very exciting! Sweetgrass tells about her everyday life, so it is easy to learn about life as a Native American teenager. I hadn't known that Native American men usually had more than one wife. The book also taught me that young girls were usually married to men, almost twice their age. The book was suspenseful, because while Sweetgrass's mother is in a depression, her brother catches the disease smallpox, and Sweetgrass is forced to take over the household. Sweetgrass also has to find ways to prove to her father that she is mature enough to become a wife. These are just two of the many aspects of the book any reader can take away from this book! Though I thoroughly enjoyed the book, others might not because it is slow to start. The book is slow to start which makes reading the beginning difficult to enjoy. Even thought the book takes a while to get going, the information you learn and the agony you feel for Sweetgrass makes it a wonderful book! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and feel that it would be a great read for anyone!

This book deals with something universal: longing for love. At 15, Sweetgrass is the oldest unmarried girl in her Blackfoot tribe. She wants badly to marry a handsome brave named Eagle-Sun, but her father insists that she's too immature. Then, a smallpox epidemic infects her people. Can she save her family and use this disaster as an opportunity to prove herself? Read it to find out!

Our heroine, Sweetgrass, of the Blackfoot Indians, faces a time of hardship and longing. Several years have passed since most girls her age should marry, and each year has come and gone with her watching her friends marry and leave. Yet, Sweetgrass is still waiting her turn and is determined to marry Eagle-Sun, though in her tribe, the parents usually pick who will marry their children. A Blackfoot woman's purpose is mainly to marry, stay at home with her children, and work.

The story itself is very bittersweet and even sad, though this is something that I have come to expect in historical fiction as opposed to more contemporary reads. Anyone looking for a happy story should look elsewhere. The descriptions of illness and death run rampant through the book's last half, which is very realistic and gives a glimpse of what it might have been like for indian tribes.

What truly sets this historical fiction apart from others is Sweetgrass. She is clearly a very young narrator, a little self-centered (didn't like her interactions with one young character while he was ill, but she is only a teen, after all), but also very single-minded and determined to have her way in a time and place where most girls just take what they can get. The back blurb also describes her as spoiled and pampered, which is very true. She spends a lot of time complaining about doing every day chores and gets mad at her father when he notices that she's a little lazy. All of these more negative characteristics are a welcome change from what I have come to expect from newer historical fictions for young adults and children, the main characters of which are seemingly perfect. It's nice to have a main character who is a little more realistic (kudos to the author on that front and on her realistic portrayal of the Blackfoot culture as well as happenings that feel real).

Other than Sweetgrass, characterizations are one-dimensional. Her interactions with Eagle-Sun, the young man she intends to marry, while fine to read, are very, very few and far in between, so the story is not so much about her romance with him (he really isn't a developed character at all); anyone looking for a lot of romance will be disappointed. This story is more about Sweetgrass dealing with hardships and coming into her own. I think this is a pretty good glimpse into the Blackfoot way of life. Also, though this is an incredibly small book (only 157 pages long), I don't consider it a kid's book; it seems more fitting for preteens and teens. Also, the author remains historically correct in having a thirteen-year-old female character get married, and Sweetgrass herself, who is consumed with the idea of her own marriage, is only fifteen. Keep in mind that times were different and ages for marrying were also different, but I'm just adding that in case some parents might have an issue with it.

On one hand, I enjoyed the book, and on another it was still missing some key elements that I really look for in a story, mainly better characterizations of secondary characters. I would have preferred to give the book a 3.5 rating, but that isn't an option. I do recommend this for teens and preteens who enjoy historical fiction.

I loved reading Sweetgrass.Once I started I couldn't stop. I recomended it to all of my friends.Read this story about a teenaged Blackfoot girl who longs to be married to Eagle Sun.Her fathrer is gone hunting when a Smallpox plague comes over their family. She must save her family alone and proves to truly be a woman.

We had to read 4 books for English, one of my choices was SWEETGRASS! When my teacher explained it to my class she said there was just enough romance for the girls and enough action for the guys! I recommend this book to everyone!!!

This book is sooooooooo good! It says that it is for childern from ages 10-12 but I am 13 and I think that it was great! If you love Native Americans this is a book for you!