Counting Coup : A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn

Rating:
Summary: Counting Coup
Review: Counting Coup was a fantastic story, written by Larry Colton, about fifteen months of his life that he stayed on an indian reservation. While Colton is on the reservation, he follows the local girls basketball team for their entire season, and the girls every intent is to win the championship. Because Colton is a white man he, at times, is not welcome and or is faced with very difficult decsions. He also grows fond of one particular player on the team, Sharon LaForge, the teams star player. This is an excellent inspirational story of poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, and teamwork. Colton does an excellent job of making the audience feel the settings and give us the bakground information on each character for us to follow the story better. I highly recommend this book for ages fifteen and up.

Rating:
Summary: Best Sports Book Ever.
Review: Being from Texas I never thought that a book about high school sports would ever have me as riveted as "Friday Night Lights." How wrong could I have been? My chance purchase of this amazing book while Christmas shopping turned out to make my literary year. Larry Colton gets swept away by the struggle of Sharon LaForge and her Hardin High teammates to capture a state championship and a future. His enthusiasm grabs the reader by the collar and drags them along on a mesmerizing and melancholy tale. This is not just a story about a championship basketball team. But it's about individual players, their families and their communities. I read this book in one sitting and found my heart pounding every time the Lady Bulldogs stepped on the court. But unlike any other book I've read I found myself more nervous about the ultimate fates of the players themselves. This book is truly a masterpiece; one I have already recommended to many friends. Read it and discover a world that 95% of Americans probably never even knew existed.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't get it out of my head.
Review: This book kept me up for three straight nights to read it, then another three nights thinking about it. Larry Colton not only tells a great story, but gives a chilling account of life on the Crow Indian reservation. The night I finished the book was the most emotionally and mentallly taxed I ever was after reading a book. Your hopes and dreams for Sharon (and all of the girls, really) lifted and dropped me so many times. This book is very similar to "Friday Night Lights," but much more emotional.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely riveting
Review: As a basketball player in high school and fan of the Indian reservation book "Reservation Blues", my parents thought this would be a wonderful gift to add to my collection. They couldn't have been more correct. This was a book which kept me up for hours at night, even on little sleep, as I sat riveted to this small team at Hardin High, where Sharon, Tiffany, Anita, Stacie (the delightful ditzy and funny girl in light of so much sadness) Amy, DyAnna, Owena, Rhea, Christina and the unforgettable Coach Mac (portrayed so very realistically as a coach and woman without a social life off the court) are followed by Colton. He doesn't just go to games and do boring interviews, he absolutely becomes part of the team -- partaking in the "sweat" ritual, gaining the trust of Sharon, going on rides on the Bulldog I to away games, and observing not only this basketball season but the lives of the girls, documenting the struggles of whites versus Indians, Indians versus themselves, and -- the part which I found most enjoyable -- the relationships and friendships between the players, on and off the court. I was so riveted by this book, and by the end, I wanted to journey up to Montana myself. An ABSOLUTE must-read.

Rating:
Summary: Jed Davis AD/Girls' Basketball Coach [e-mail]
Review: This is an exciting, on-the-edge-of-your-seat book that takes you into two worlds that few Americans know much about, American Indian reservation culture and girls' high school basketball. These two worlds become intertwined as author Larry Colton tracks the life of a Crow Indian high school senior, Sharon LaForge, as she and her Hardin, Montana teammates struggle as individuals and as a team to reach the state championship. This true story is excellent because it documents the problems that face reservation Indians in their struggle to survive prejudice, poverty and vice while maintaining dignity in a white-dominated and highly prejudiced world. But it also takes you into the heart of the phenomenon of girls' high school basketball-- the drive for excellence, the ever changing relationships among girls and between girls and coach, the rivalries, the mood swings and the pressures from families and boyfriends. The book is told as a story which takes place over a season. The author explores each character in detail so you feel like you really get to know each one of them. There are also photos of the basketball team and Sharon LaForge. In addition to being an exciting story, the author tells the story with quite a bit of humor. And his perspectives on the meaning of events and people's lives are insightful and sensitive. I am a high school girls' basketball coach. I also coach young girls in basketball. Larry Colton has captured the experience and takes you into a world of sport, Indian and rural America that most of us are unaware of. The book is highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Counting Coup
Review: Counting Coup is a five star book. It is for all ages and is the best book I have ever read. If you want to read about a Indian Girl who has sturuggles in her life, but has enouph sstrangth and passion to play her sport, her love, and her passion basketball. This young high school girl has the most emotional and physical problems have ever herd of, to know that this story is based on a true girl, it brings tears to my eyes. Every teenager can relate to this book and that is what makes it so good and so special.

Rating:
Summary: countig coup
Review: Counting Coup is an intesting book that shares racial and family struggles between indians and whites. The authour was a major league baseball pitcher who got in a bar fight and injured his arm forcing him to retire.He goes to Montana to scout a boys basketball team, but ends up following around a girls high school team.
Throughout the book he notices many problems with some of the girls both on the court and at home. He gathered great information and wrote the book well. His information was from family,friends,and the coachall of which he got to know through the book. By the end of the book he was accepted into a indian tribe and years later he wrote this book.

Rating:
Summary: Life and Basketball on the Rez
Review: Being from Montana made this book interesting from the start. But it still didn't make any differnce after the first page. This book had me up untill all hours of the morning turning the pages. It teaches you what real life on the rez is like...whites, and indians. A few traditions added in, it shows it all. This book teaches you the pressures that go along with high school basketball, and the pain they go through to make everyone happy, and what they sacrifice, or don't sacrifice for their team. Definatly a must read for anyone!

Rating:
Summary: Counting Coup
Review: The book Counting Coup is about an author who travels to the Crow Reservation and is doing a book about boys basketball but when he sees a young lady nsmed Sharon Laforge in a trophy case at the school his attention is drawn to her. Then he starts to go to her practices anf games. Sharon is a Crow native and she is the basketball star of her family, her family has a alcohol problem especially her mother, how has no part in Sharon.s life.
I loved the book it is a really great book and it tells readers about the life a basketball ans the rez.

Rating:
Summary: Counting Coup
Review: This was a fabulous, poinant book about life, love and basketball. The callous, thoughtless racism that is depicted on the parts of the Indians and the White is enlightning as it sheds light on the fact that ignorant people come in all shades and colors. I would highly recommend this book to anyone and my wife and I have enjoyed it several times each. I'm hoping for a follow-up to see how her life has been in the past 10 years.