A Tree Home? A Pet Peregrine Falcon? This story is a real but unreal delight!

Samuel Gribley runs away from home with only a penknife, a ball of cord, an ax, and $40, plus some flint and steel. He makes a home in the Catskill Mountains by burning a room out of a huge tree and using a deer hide door for added protection. On the way through this 177-page story, he meets many friends, including a newspaper reporter who won’t tell the secret of his dwelling in the mountains. But his secret will easily slip. During this time, he tames a peregrine falcon named Frightful to catch his food. Do you think he’ll starve to death? Do you think he’ll survive with his secret kept? 

    I think this story is very well written and apparently Jean Craighead George wrote it according to the George family dreams. Her mom wanted to run away, Jean wanted to run away, and Jean’s daughter wanted to run away, too. For me, her dream might have been nice to try, but I’m too busy doing all kinds of fun things. Jean worked her dream into an informative fiction story, with information on vitamins, plant identification, pictures of how to make traps and snares, musical instruments like willow whistles, reed pipes, and more! I really favor how Jean writes her story in the middle of the informative-fiction scale, not newspaper style, not fiction style, but in the middle.

Written by Nikko W. Naugle

I write whenever and whatever I can. I hope to one day be a famous author. I write blog articles, and I am a local newspaper contributor (read my Editorial Bio, Zero Waste, and Building Community ) and I write lots of book reviews. I am 9 years old, I love to read, ride bikes, skateboard, swim, and I have lived half my life in Guatemala and half on a small island in the Salish Sea. This is my personal website, and you can find my family’s website at www.yourveganfamily.com.