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Comments (45)

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1 to 25 of 45 items
Mar 16, 2024chrisabler rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
A wonderful read, I find the author's extrapolating imagination to be wonderful as is her erudite syntax. Throughout the book and even into the afterword, I have an insurmountable conviction that "savage" and the plural has erroneously be…
Feb 14, 2024 CALS_Amanda rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
This is not Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk’s story. Caleb is a minor, periphery character; after the book’s first third or so, he’s almost more a symbol than a character at all. You’ll probably like _Caleb’s Crossing_ better if you go in knowing…
Dec 04, 2023susan_1209 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
How much more real & compelling high school history would be if it could be supplemented via books like Caleb’s Crossing. While a work of fiction, Caleb’s Crossing is firmly grounded in historical fact. Bethia Mayfield may be a character…
Oct 12, 2023
Wonderful read! Exceptional story of early Puritan settlers and relations with indigenous people, narrated in beautiful old English style by a minister's young daughter. Based on the record of the first indigenous student at Harvard…
Jul 29, 2023MM1480 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Beautiful book — completely draws the reader into a different time. Written with great understanding of human nature.
Feb 24, 2023busymom51 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Caleb was member of the Wampanoag tribe living on what is now known as Martha's Vineyard. A fortuitous encounter with the Bethia, the daughter of the local missionary in the 1650's changes his destiny and ultimately leads to his prominence…
Jan 02, 2023ZepedaL rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Astonishing. Brooks imagines the role of a 17th century girl in the career of Caleb, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard. Bethia is dutiful, silent, intelligent, and craving a life of the mind. She lives through drudgery and…
Sep 11, 2022CMatisse rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
What it might be like for a smart white woman and a smart native American man living in Massachusetts in the 1600s.
Jan 21, 2021SandyMcc0 rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Read 20
Dec 19, 2020mardscott rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Like many of Brooks' other novels, this on e is set in Puritan America, 1660s. This time it is on Martha's Vineyard. The story is told by Beth Mayfield, an inquisitive, bright girl . . then a woman . . .and is about her life and her…
Jul 21, 2019EljayJohnson rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
My third Brooks book, after Year of Wonders and People of the Book. I didn't like this quite as well as the other two, but I still think she's a wonderful writer. Sometimes I would just stop and reread a sentence; at times her structure…
May 13, 2019Tjad2LT rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Another gem by Geraldine Brooks! This historical fiction novel is about, Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard in 1665. The author tells the story in such a way that she jumps ahead in one chapter then…
Dec 28, 2018maryebarr rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
This was a terribly disappointing book. While I enjoyed the peek into life in the colonies in the 1660's, it seems the author could not decide to tell Bethia's story or Caleb's. The plot details Bethia's life in detail from age 12 to 20 or…
LoganLib_JennyI
Aug 30, 2018LoganLib_JennyI rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Pulitzer Prize winning Australian-American author, Geraldine Brooks tells the story of the first Native American to graduate from Harvard University in the 17th century. Brooks takes a small piece of history and with research and…
May 27, 2018
I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book but I found it an enjoyable read and would recommend it to others.
Feb 14, 2018ArapahoeAnnaL rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
The first Native American to graduate from Harvard - in 1665. Friendship amid two very different cultures; compellingly drawn picture of Martha's Vineyard in the early Colonial period.
Feb 08, 2016Dennis Robert Rue rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Definitely a skilled writer with imagination coupled with good research who knows how to make an interesting storyline punctuated with enough fact, drama and romance to tow the reader along. Will definitely try her other novels.
Feb 03, 2016gusmcrae rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Geraldine Brooks has to be one of the finest writers of our time. Her writing fully immerses her readers into worlds set in centuries past, and she manages to do so in a form that is truthful to the time and place of the book's setting.…
Dec 07, 2015PimaLib_MaryG rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Author Geraldine Brooks is an amazing writer of historical fiction. In this novel she creates a fictional friend of Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, to tell a story of what it may have been like…
Nov 25, 2015
This was captivating historical fiction from a girls diary perspective. I would've preferred it to be about fiction with a happy ending instead of the white patrons proving they could train this primitive savage (spelled salvage in the…
Oct 15, 2015hildesanders rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Wonderful beginning, great story until the last quarter, then I was slammed to the ground wondering if someone had glued the last pages to a different book into my book! I had to read the other comments on this website to see if i was…
AquaSabi
Aug 09, 2015AquaSabi rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
This is a good read. The author writes her ideas on the lives of the first two known Native American scholars to attend what would become Harvard University. This is seen through the perspective of Bethia who is a resident of English…
Jun 23, 2015Chapel_Hill_KenMc rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Brooks has a talent for making history come alive, with deft use of period vocabulary and nuanced portrayals of historical cultures and communities. She's also not afraid to tackle huge issues: in this case the racism of early English…
Mar 01, 2015IV27HUjg rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Not my favorite story of this favorite writer - that is Year of Wonders. How she finds voice to each era of story amazes me. Meticulous researcher in all she writes.
Feb 12, 2015kathylou rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Interesting story but tiresomely presented by Bethia in the first person, a spunky girl who is smarter, better read, more sensitive, harder working , etc than any other person. Since the other characters weren't well developed, I had…