Frightful's Mountain

Frightful's Mountain by Jean Craighead George

I do not consider books with blatantly clear agendas to be quality literature. I don’t care for them even if I find the agenda to be for a worthy cause.


I enjoyed the first book in the series. The second was fair, but no comparison to the first. I don’t think the third needed to be written. The beauty of the first book was in its protagonist, Sam Gribley, an extraordinarily different young man. There just wasn’t enough of him in the second book and he only had a bit part in the third.

As the title suggests, this book belongs to the bird/birds. The book follows Frightful from when she was first taken from Sam by the poacher in disguise through two migration attempts and finally back home to the hemlock tree. The author explains her behavior, or lack of true Peregrine Falcon behavior along the way. “If Frightful had been raised in the true wild, she would have done this, but since she was raised and trained by Sam and didn’t know what she was supposed to do, she did that instead.”

Birds simply do not have the emotions to gain my sympathies. Luckily, the omniscient author element was still present and we could feel Sam’s joy at Frightful’s return. And a falconer’s awe at her beauty. And the children’s frustration at the lack of support for endangered species. And finally the construction workers growing affection for the little family.

Then the lectures set in. Power lines are a hazard for the falcons … DDT is poisonous to the migrating falcons … disruption of a brooding falcon drastically reduces their numbers. Write letters to your congressman to protect the birds. Here are some example letters … Protest. I would be reading along, enjoying the narrative and then there would be this mini segue that bumped me back into reality. Very disconcerting.

I think this book couldn’t decide if it was going to be fact or fiction. Okay, fine. It’s contemporary realistic fiction, yes. But it wasn’t sure if was going to be informational or recreational.

My answer would be the latter. More Sam! More Sam! More Sam! And the rest would follow …

What I loved … The recurring poetic words, “The one mountain among thousands, the one tree among millions, the one boy – Sam.” It’s all about Sam.