HOME SCHOOL BOOK REVIEW
Book: Incident at Hawk’s Hill
Author: Allan W. Eckert
Illustrator: John Schoenherr
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers, republished in 1995
ISBN-13: 978-0316209489
ISBN-10: 0316209481
Language level: 3
(1=nothing objectionable; 2=common euphemisms and/or childish slang terms; 3=some cursing or profanity; 4=a lot of cursing or profanity; 5=obscenity and/or vulgarity)
Reading level: Ages 10 and up
Rating: 4 stars (GOOD)
Reviewed by Wayne S. Walker
Disclosure: Any books donated for review purposes are in turn donated to a library. No other compensation has been received for the reviews posted on Home School Book Review.
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Eckert, Allan W. Incident at Hawk’s Hill (published in 1971 by Little Brown and Company, Boston, MA). In 1870, the MacDonald family lives on a farm which they had named Hawk’s Hill which is along the Red River near North Corners north of Winnipeg in the Manitoba territory of Canada. There are William and Esther with their children, John, sixteen, Beth, twelve, Coral, nine, and Benjamin, six. Ben doesn’t seem ordinary. He’s much too small for his age and extremely shy, appearing to get along better with animals than with other human beings, including his own family. The people of the North Corners community just don’t know what to think of him. The MacDonalds’ neighbor, George Burton, is a former trapper, and William allows him to trap the animals, including badgers, on the MacDonald farm. However, Ben doesn’t like Burton, especially when Burton brings back one badger that he’s killed.
While wandering around the prairie on the farm, Ben makes friends with another badger, a four-year-old female which is the dead one’s mate and is about to give birth. After this encounter, the badger has her litter but is caught in one of Burton’s traps, and before she can get out of it, her pups all die. Then, one day in June, Ben wanders away from home and disappears without a trace into the waving prairie grass. To escape a storm, he crawls into the badger’s den and is adopted by the badger in place of her lost little ones. All the neighbors join the MacDonalds in looking for him, but the first one he sees is George Burton, so he continues to hide. Everyone but the MacDonalds decides that he must be dead, perhaps drowned in the river and carried away, and so give up. What will become of Ben? Will he survive? And what will happen to the badger?
Author Allan W. Eckert, who won a Newbery Honor award for Incident at Hawk’s Hill in 1972, says that the story is a slightly fictionalized version of something that actually happened at the time and place noted. Ben would probably be considered somewhat autistic today, and it is wonderful to see the transformation that takes place in his relationship with his family. A lot of historical material about western Canada is found in the Prologue, and much interesting scientific information about nature generally and about badgers specifically is contained in the book. Also, the family and the author plainly give credit to God for Ben’s amazing survival. Reluctant readers may not have the patience for the slow pace of the book, especially toward the beginning. And sensitive readers may have some trouble with descriptions of killing and skinning animals, the badger’s eating of her babies’ waste, and Ben’s dining on raw badger food. But don’t let the “gross” parts keep you from reading this modern classic. The words “God” and “Lord” are occasionally used as interjections. Otherwise, this is a very touching tale that will especially appeal to the nature lover.
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