AROUND 1980 I SAW A MINI-SERIES "THE AWAKENING LAND"
WITH HAL HOLBROOK AND ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY WONDER WHY THIS IS NOT AVALIBLE TO PURCHASE ??I THEN PURCHASED THE 3 BOOK SERIES AND FOUND THE STORY TO BE EXCELLENT READING.IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN OUR AMERICAN LAND AND HOW THE MIDWEST FRONTIER PEOPLE HAD TO LIVE AMONG THE WILDS AND TURN THEIR LIVES AROUND
TO MAKE HOMES AND FAMILIES, YOU WILL LOVES THESE BOOKS

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT SERIES

All 3 of these books are beautifully written. I enjoyed the authors style-very colorful, wonderful characters, descriptive. I had seen the movie when I was 14 years old on t.v., and am now 38 and just about finished with the last book of this triology--very hard to put down. I truly would like to own a copy of this movie, but unfortunately it is not available.I know I will re-read these books soon.
Highly recommended.

I saw this as a movie about 3 years ago. Beats me why it isn't played more often and the book is out of print. It was truly something for everyone. The history was spellbinding and the plot holds you better than Saving Private Ryan. The story address all aspects of what life must have been like to be the first to break ground in the frontier. It's all here, how they choose their homestead, hunting and hunger, domestics accidents and trials, the blooming politics, lonliness, fear,death, finding love and starting the next generation. I wish I could find the video. If you can get your hands on this one there are many of us that will be green with envy.

Stunningly well written, Richter does an amazing job of capturing the early American atmosphere in this third book of his Awakening Land trilogy. While the entire book is told from the third person, one thing I really liked was the way he tells different chapters from the perspective of different characters. The way the characters are built, especially Sayward is truly amazing as we get to see their actions from several different perspectives. Make sure to read the review by "A reader from Yokota air base, Japan."

"The Town" is the final chapter in Conrad Richter's "Awakening Land" triology, and it concludes the saga of Sayward Wheeler and her family as they finish turning the Ohio wilderness into a bustling city. The triumphs and tragedies of the Wheeler family are not any different from those of real families in this or any time. That's what makes this story so special: showing how special ordinary people are. Richter's prose strives for the realistic dialects of the region and time, and that gives this book an additional ring of truth. What I've admired about this book is the character of Sayward Luckett Wheeler, who stands heads and shoulders above any other "strong woman" in American literature, especially including Scarlett O'Hara. Sayward is truly the glue that holds her family and community together and she better than any represents the American pioneer as a person of strength, stoicism and compassion. As the frontier is disappearing around her, Sayward also has the good grace and dignity to accept that. She, like her country, is constantly growing and developing. The first book "The Trees," depicted the struggle to eke out a home in the lonely wilderness, while the "The Fields," followed the development of an isolated pioneer community. "The Town" ties the first two books together while chronicling the next step in a city's development. It's a stunningly simple and beautiful story. I'm not sure if it's possible for anyone to write the "great American novel," but if so, then Mr. Richter has done it three times with this series. You'll want to read this over again just for the poetical simplicty of the language Strongly recommended.

Conrad Richter's "The Fields" is the middle book of his "Awakening Land" trilogy, and is no less powerful than the first, "The Trees," with its authentic use of pioneer speech and dialects, and its realistic depiction of the triumphs and tragedies of real Americans. Set in the original "West" of Ohio, "The Fields" continues the story of Sayward Luckett Wheeler as she and her growing family settle their land and deal with the everyday task of surviving. What was a handful of isolated trapper's cabins in the first book has now become a collection of settlements that is clearly on its way to becoming a bustling town. Sayward, as stoical as always, strongly confronts every realistic challenge and victory frontier life hands her. She's a refreshingly strong feminine character who is truly the reason why the West was settled. Her strength and determination holds her large family together as the frontier is pushed further westward. Mr. Richter was a truly gifted writer who manges to make the daily life of these long-dead heroes exciting and worthwhile.

I am currently reading, as I get to them, the winners of the National Book Award which I haven't yet read. This book won the 1961 award and I found it an eerily moving book, which really caught me up after I read for a bit. It tells of John Donner revisiting his boyhood home, and while fantastic it has none of the things I so often find irritatin in "fantasy" books. I was powerfully affected by this great simple story.

In the late 1980s,while attending the University of New Mexico, I found myself in Harvena Richter's creative writing class. This book, written by her and based on her father's private notebooks, was our text. And what a text! Containing insights into how a writer's mind works, where to look for inspiration and how tough it can be be to write for a living, WRITING TO SURVIVE is where I turn when I have a creative block of any kind. It has shown me how to look at the simple and true and use them as a stepping stone to overcome whatever creative roadblock is in my path. It contains notes on writing, journal entries detailing times of despair when words would not flow...along with the joy of triumph over a sale or kind word. Conrad Richter truly wrote to survive. Times were hard and often the food on the table depended on the sale of a story. It is a insider's look at what makes a writer write and a wonderful tribute to one of the most underrated American authors...one who deserves to be rediscovered.

"The Free Man," is not Conrad Richter's best work of historical fiction, but it's better by far than most other works in the same genre. It's the story of Henner Dellicker, a German immigrant, who comes to America as an indentured servant, escapes, prospers as a trader, then distinguishes himself during the American Revolution on the side of the colonists. At the beginning of the novel, Dellicker is a well-respected merchant,freedom fighter and retired statesman, enjoying his golden years. For a local historian, he recalls his arrival to the colonies and how he is tricked into indentured servitude. The ensuing story of Dellicker's life of virtual slavery and his subsequent escape correct an overlooked chapter in the development of our country: the injustices of indentured servitude. Dellicker's service as a military leader and peacetime politician also highlights the contributions of the Pennsylvania Dutch to the USA's development as a strong nation.

While the novel contains Richter's typical passion for accuracy in historical detail and in the spoken language of the early Americans, it does lack the powerful plotting that exists in his other novels. Dellicker's later marriage to the woman who purchased his contract seems rather rushed and tacked on, as if to satisfy the need for a romantic subplot.

This aside, "The Free Man" uses its historic setting to correct several ommissions in popular history of the contributions of German settlers, and in the contradictions of the indentured servitude system. Stephanie Grauman Wolf, in her afterword, suggests Richter hoped to ease mistrust and hostility directed towards German-Americans during World War II (when this was written) by demonstrating their deep roots in our country's history. Despite this rather strained moral, this book is at its best when it depicts how one determined person, regardless of country of origin, can make a better life for him- or herself in a country filled with promise, and help build that country into a strong nation. In the end, it's not important what country Dellicker is from, but rather what his immigration and subsequent success represent: that the USA was built by immigrants looking for a better life for themselves.

it has been awhile since i read this one. it made a very strong impression though. i do agree that the end is a little "tacked on" but i found it enjoyable nonetheless

I was asked to read The Trees over the summer for school. As a high school student who loves to read, I was estatic to have a new, thick book placed in front of me. 2 months later, I wasn't even half way through it. Every time I started to read the novel, I would either fall asleep, or just give up out of simple boredom. Richter did not make this book very reader friendly, never setting up a true plot, never reaching an exciting climax in the story, and never making you become attached to ay character besides Sayward Luckit. Who lived a dull life, caring for her brother and sisters. Perhaps this is a book beyond high school capability, or perhaps it is a book that was made to cure insomnia... I don't know. However, I do know that I would never recomend it to anybody, unless they were looking for a way to fall asleep.

I saw the miniseries years ago and loved it instantly. This seems like the real way it must have been for our ancestors (not that far back!). It's always fascinating to get a glimpse of how people lived many, many years ago. I read the Trilogy, and found this book, as the first in the series, probably my favorite. It will capture your imagination from the beginning.

The first part in "The Awakening Land" trilogy, "The Trees" chronicles the settling of the Ohio wilderness in the early days of the Republic. With an ear toward authenticity, Conrad Richter has seamlessly mixed history with fiction by introducing realistic characters who tamed Ohio when it was the "West." The story is simple, but beautifully told as Richter introduces the Luckett family, especially eldest daughter Sayward. The Lucketts claim the land and eke out a living among a howling wilderness as Sayward becomes the true head of the family. Richter is to be congratulated for introducing a realisitically strong character who, representing nameless and countless pioneer women, is a true hero. Read it for history or read it for fiction, it will touch you and teach you.

The reason why it is so important to pay attention to description is because Richter uses nearly every detail to help tell the story. The prose is evocative in the tradition of some of the best modernist writing at the time like Willa Cather. Despite the occasional misplaced modifier, Sea of Grass is definitely a book that deserves a close reading--if only for Richter's poetic prose that makes you want to read out loud.

Conrad Richter is a detailed narrator of the Early American Scene.The clear sense of a spacious natural setting that he has depcited in other novels like the vast New Mexican territory in The Lady, the elemental force of the natural forest in The Trees, and The Light in the Forest is present in The Sea of Grass. The cattle barons with their ranches "as big a Massachusetts with Connecticut thrown in" and the rolling spanse of emerald green prairie in the spring will render a visual sense of splendor.Historically, Richter encompasses the tense struggle between the rich cattle barons and the squatters in the mid 1800's. My favorite part of the book is the unexpected direction of the character Lutie. The delicate balance of prose and the strong conflicts that develop between the characters, the Colonel, Lutie, Brock, and Judge Chamberlain grab the readers' full attention. Mr. Richter with an uncanny skill for recapturing the past dramatizes the brutality and bravado of the Southwest in the mid 1800's in The Sea of Grass.

"The Sea of Grass" is a simple story masterfully told by Conrad Richter. No other writer can match Richter's ability to capture the spoken word of a region or particular time period, or equal his aptitude in turning a simple chain of events into powerful story telling. This novel chronicles the end of the New Mexico frontier as seen through the eyes of Hal, the nephew of one of the last great cattle ranchers. As civilization encroaches even onto that remote region, Colonel Jim Brewton symbolizes the last struggle and eventual submission of the land to the inevitable development of the forces of society. Richter also weaves Brewton's marriage to an unfaithful wife and his relationship to their children into this conflict. Although this plot appears derivative and indentical to that of a soap opera, Richter's prose style elevates it to the status of a great tragedy. Richter clearly mourns the passing of the great independents whose struggle to develop the land clearly and ironically led to their own obsolescence.

Like in his classic novel "The Light in the Forest," Conrad Richter's "A Country of Strangers" takes the reader back in time to the colonial America of 1764 when the Indians were forced to give back all their white captives in order to ratify a peace treaty with the British. Among these captives is Stone Girl a young woman who has spent most of her life with the Indians. She has even married a warrior and given birth to a son. Although she intially avoids returning to the whites, circumstances have Stone Girl and her son being sold to a French missionary who then tries to locate her white family.

Unlike the protagonist of "The Light in the Forest," True Son(who is reintroduced in the later part of this novel); Stone Girl does have some hazy memories of her former life among the whites. And these memories cause her to be sent to the home of a man thought to be her white father. Instead of being embraced as the long lost child, Stone Girl is met with cold indifference and hostility. Her white mother, who was her clearest memory, is dead, and a young woman claiming to be the lost daughter has already imposed herself on the family. Stone Girl's claims as daughter are rejected, and she is sent to work as a servant. Only her white father's Quaker mother, who suspects her son is being deceived by an imposter, holds any sympathy for this "Indian" girl who could very well be her real granddaughter. Will Stone Girl ever find a home for herself and her son? Or will she forever walk in a country of strangers?

This short novel begins with a 1764 setting in the forests of central Ohio (near present-day Coshocton, Ohio) at the junction of the Muskingum, the Tuscarawas, and the Waldhoning Rivers. The book presents a somewhat romanticized picture of the American Indian at that time. The central character is John Cameron Butler, known as True Son in the Delaware tribe with which he has lived since he was four years old. He is now fifteen and his life is being uprooted once again. The Indians have signed a treaty in which they have to return all white captives to their original families, even those who don't wish to go. All John knows is his life as an Indian and now he has to return to the family (in Paxton, Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River) he hasn't seen for eleven years. But, he doesn't fit in there and he finds himself caught between two cultures. Although very well written, it appears that Richter is suggesting that Indian/colonists interactions were doomed from the very beginning. One culture had to win and one had to lose. He presents the case where neither culture appeared willing to tolerate nor to understand the other. And, in more general terms, in my opinion Richter seems to hint that all such cultural conflicts are fated to fail. This is a rather sad commentary on man. I certainly hope it is not true and that there are good chances for Serb/Albanian, Irish/English, Indian/Pakistani, etc., interactions. This book is often used in reading assignments for students ranging from ages eleven through fourteen. I find it also a depressing thought that such a dark vision of man's capacity for tolerance and understanding is being presented to young, impressionable minds. I would have hoped that teachers in the 1990s would have found literary sources with a less negative outlook. It would appear that some of the negative reviews provided by earlier, and much younger, readers have some validity.

A Light In The Forest centers around a fifteen-year-old boy named True Son, who lived with the Lenni Lenape for eleven years, ever since the Indians had captured him during an attack on a farm. He was adopted by Cuyloga and Quaquenga, a family of the Lenni Lenape, and became one of them.
One day, his village learns that all white prisoners must be returned to their birth families, and his father takes him to the camp of soldiers that will take True Son to Pennsylvania. True Son's experiences in an English town and his desire to return to his village are the storyline of the book. This book is appropriate for eight graders, though the author, Conrad Richter, portrays some scenes almost too vividly. Children who have been in a divorce situation can relate to True Son and his feelings of abandonment. The book does an excellent job of informing readers of how the English and the Indians viewed each other, and gives the reader the unique viewpoint of True Son. For entertainment, the book falls a little short, occasionally losing your attention by attempting to summarize events without going into any detail. Overall, the book is not a bad read, and would be especially enjoyable if you like historic novels from this period.

'The Light in The Forest' is a book about a young White boy from 18th century America who was born as a "frontier child" but was then stolen by Indians when very young and brought up as an Indian for ten years. His Indian name is True Son, and his white name is John Butler. When he is about 15 years old, he is forced to go back and live with his real White family. He is devastated because he was brought up to hate the Whites, and now he is being forced to live with them and to practice their culture. At first True Son refuses to comply at all with the Whites and tries to escape. After a while, and after spending much time with the Whites though, it seems that True Son is beginning to accept and become used to their culture, and is starting to lose his Indian ways. It looks as if all of the Indian in him has been run over and destroyed, when one night, he finds his old Indian friend / cousin and escapes with him from the Whites to a long journey back home to his old Indian town. It seems now that all the Indian he left behind has been renewed to him and most of what the whites forced into his head is gone when, with little warning, True Son must make a life-altering decision that will decide his fate, and that will decide what culture he is to live with.

I really enjoyed this book; it showed the conflict between whites and Indians in 18th century America very well. It was filled with action and adventure, and although short, it still developed the characters and the plot so that you had a broad understanding of what kind of decisions this young man had to make, how it must have been like being bounced from culture to culture (especially in that day), and how hard things must have been in general. This understanding of the character is what keeps you reading and keeps you itching to find out where fate will put John Butler/ True Son. I would recommend this book because of these reasons, and because of the way the author attacked the overlying conflict between Whites and Indians: he spoke of it from both the White's and the Indian's sides. Because of this the reader can understand the conflict from both sides, and can not easily pick a side to support, which made things interesting. Lastly, in my opinion, this book is quite unpredictable, and you can't tell how it will complete itself until the very end, which made the book more fun to read. If you enjoy history, and adventure you will probably enjoy this book.