["Incident at Hawk's Hill" is] disturbing….

The descriptions of animal habits and habitats are fascinating, and the lesson that only the fittest survive is clearly drawn—but author Eckert has done his job too well. The scenes of gratuitous and explicit violence—such as the bloody death battles between animals—end by turning the reader's stomach.

Perhaps the author intended to give his young readers a picture of man's ability to endure, to make a statement about the quality of will and courage, but what he has created is the stuff of terrible nightmares.

Jennifer Farley Smith, "Despair Pervades Prize Books," in The Christian Science Monitor (reprinted by permission from The Christian Science Monitor; © The Christian Science Publishing Society; all rights reserved), May 2, 1972, p. 4.∗

Every so often a really beautiful, simple book appears, and nearly always one finds that it is based on fact or personal experience. (p...