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Rating: 
Summary: 10 Stars for Compass of the Heart
Review: Many thanks to Priscilla Cogan for writing this beautiful book continuing to weave the story of Winona, Meggie O'Connor and Hawk. Not only is this a wonderful love story, but a story that allows the reader to learn about beautiful Lakota traditions. I fell in love with this book and didn't want it to end. It was a story of relationships at many different levels. The growing love between Meggie and Hawk, the Lakota wisdom Winona shared with her Grandson Adam, and the struggling relationship between Wynona and her daughter Lucy, who in many ways rejected her Lakota heritage. It was simply beautiful, and I couldn't put it down. If reviews had a 10-star rating, that would be my pick for Compass of the Heart.
Rating:
Summary: 10 Stars for Compass of the Heart
Review: Many thanks to Priscilla Cogan for writing this beautiful book continuing to weave the story of Winona, Meggie O'Connor and Hawk. Not only is this a wonderful love story, but a story that allows the reader to learn about beautiful Lakota traditions. I fell in love with this book and didn't want it to end. It was a story of relationships at many different levels. The growing love between Meggie and Hawk, the Lakota wisdom Winona shared with her Grandson Adam, and the struggling relationship between Wynona and her daughter Lucy, who in many ways rejected her Lakota heritage. It was simply beautiful, and I couldn't put it down. If reviews had a 10-star rating, that would be my pick for Compass of the Heart.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: Priscilla Cogan has brought us the second title in the Winona Trilogy, the first being WINONA'S WEB. Although reading COMPASS doesn't really reveal anything that would ruin it for the reader if she chooses to read it first, I would still recommend finding WINONA'S WEB and reading it before COMPASS. The story is a contemporary romance and takes place on the Indian Reservations in Northwest Michigan. Winona Pathfinder is an elderly medicine woman who knows she is dying. She calls in her younger cousin Hawk, who she has been teaching and tells him to gather the family. The family is her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren. As the family tries to communicate in this sad and awkward time, the author lets us hear what each one is really thinking although tradition and manners has them saying something different. We learn Winona's daughter is as much a woman of the present as her mother is of the past. And one of her grandchildren will someday carry on the tradition. Hawk is surprised when she tells him to give her social pipe to a white woman named Meggie. Meggie is a psychologist who attempted to treat Winona and convince her she wasn't dying, instead Winona taught Meggie about the earth and spiritual world. Hawk is even more surprised when Winona asks him to watch over Meggie. Hawk has dedicated his life to his people and he feels to love a white woman would be a betrayal, yet here is the wise woman he left the South Dakota Reservation for, telling him to watch over the one white woman he already fights temptation with, Meggie O'Connor. The reader will be drawn into the enchanting world of Indian life; its myths, its beliefs. And they will see how our American Indians must balance their past with their present. The glimpse into their version of the afterworld is captivating. I think we all can learn from the different traditions and methods of other cultures. Priscilla Cogan shows a side of the Indian culture that is both mesmerizing and fascinating. Also, take notice of the Glossary of Lakota words at the back of the book. Look for the first award-winning book in this trilogy, WINONA'S WEB, to become a movie in the year 2000.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: Priscilla Cogan has brought us the second title in the Winona Trilogy, the first being WINONA'S WEB. Although reading COMPASS doesn't really reveal anything that would ruin it for the reader if she chooses to read it first, I would still recommend finding WINONA'S WEB and reading it before COMPASS. The story is a contemporary romance and takes place on the Indian Reservations in Northwest Michigan. Winona Pathfinder is an elderly medicine woman who knows she is dying. She calls in her younger cousin Hawk, who she has been teaching and tells him to gather the family. The family is her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren. As the family tries to communicate in this sad and awkward time, the author lets us hear what each one is really thinking although tradition and manners has them saying something different. We learn Winona's daughter is as much a woman of the present as her mother is of the past. And one of her grandchildren will someday carry on the tradition. Hawk is surprised when she tells him to give her social pipe to a white woman named Meggie. Meggie is a psychologist who attempted to treat Winona and convince her she wasn't dying, instead Winona taught Meggie about the earth and spiritual world. Hawk is even more surprised when Winona asks him to watch over Meggie. Hawk has dedicated his life to his people and he feels to love a white woman would be a betrayal, yet here is the wise woman he left the South Dakota Reservation for, telling him to watch over the one white woman he already fights temptation with, Meggie O'Connor. The reader will be drawn into the enchanting world of Indian life; its myths, its beliefs. And they will see how our American Indians must balance their past with their present. The glimpse into their version of the afterworld is captivating. I think we all can learn from the different traditions and methods of other cultures. Priscilla Cogan shows a side of the Indian culture that is both mesmerizing and fascinating. Also, take notice of the Glossary of Lakota words at the back of the book. Look for the first award-winning book in this trilogy, WINONA'S WEB, to become a movie in the year 2000.
Rating:
Summary: So different, yet so familiar!
Review: This was the first of Priscilla's books that I came in contact with and I was pleasantly surprised and I got impressed later on in the book. Impressed because it isn't often that you find an American author that cites an old Swedish song. One that just so happens my parents sung to me as a child and that I've always loved highly. Being a Swede that has never crossed the ocean in that direction, I found it very helpful to read her books to get just a little peek into the native American people, that you see in various films all the time and hear quite a bit about, but never this personal. I am grateful for this chance to look into their ceremonies closely and get inside another persons experience with them, from both a native American and a non-native American perspective.
That on one hand and then Priscilla being a psychologist and writing about a western psychologist's meeting with these traditions and ceremonies, was superb to me. So different but yet so familiar.
-Yes, she's got it all covered so well, that although Meggie recons these things are all knew and she has her own beliefs, because of her psychological education you can not help but feel that what is happening in this book is all very usual and every-day kind of things. Priscilla deals with all of Meggies questions and therefor she also deals with my own questioning as a reader. The feeling, a long time after reading her book is that it is perfectly normal and nothing out of the ordinary going on in it. Not all psychologists manage to make me feel at such ease with things the way Priscilla does, which is an excellent skill. The skill of integrating a western type of societal hierarchy with tribalism. That and Christianity along with naturalistic belief's without to much of a clutch can really be something to master.
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