CANYONS

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Summary: "Canons," is about a teen age boy who lives with his mother.
Review: "Canyons," is about a teen age boy, Brennan, who lives in a broken home with his mother in EL Paso, Texas. Brennan loves to run for the sake of running. Unlike many other books, the secrets are all revealed to the reader in the beginning. We follow Brennan as he goes along tying to understand the strange things that happen to him after a camping trip to a canyon. He finds a small human skull with two holes in it. The skull, which he takes back to his house, seems to have a power over him. It makes him dream parts of the story which was revealed to the reader through the first nine chapters. For some reason he can't bring himself to report it to anyone. He tries to find out more about the skull through one of his teachers, John Homesley. The two of them had developed a kind of friendship over time. Homesley was a biology teacher and a medic in Vietnam so when Brennan showed him the skull he was able to tell that the holes where from a bullet, but that was all he knew. Homesley had a friend who Brennan and Homesley paid a visit. He guessed a lot, but knew that the skull belonged to a young Native American boy, who was shot in the head at a very close range with a large caliber rife which American soldiers used in the late 1800's... To find out the rest, read the book. This good book has a very addictive beginning, so it is easy to get into without have to go through 30 or 40 pages of filler. It is set up so you're reading two stories at the same time which makes it even more interesting. I recommend this book to anyone who likes a good adventure, and especially to those who have an interest in American history. It's a consistently good book.

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Summary: A book that gets better and better as you read it
Review: "Canyons" is an interesting book and it's one of Gary Paulsen's best. Coyote Runs was a young Apache Indian that was just going through the ritual of becoming a man when he got killed by some soldiers. About 100 years later, a fourteen year old boy named Brennan finds Coyote Runs's skull while on a camping trip in the canyons. He gets attached to the skull once he starts hearing mysterious voices that are like spirits speaking to him from the skull. Brennan wants to find out more about the skull. Eventually he decides to do something with it and he won't let anybody stand in his way until he does it.

"Canyons" is a good and compelling book. Gary Paulsen alternately tells the story of Coyote Runs and Brennan, and eventually brings their two stories together to make the book even better. There are several high points in the story that seem like they're the climax of "Canyons," but as you read on you'll read even better parts, making it all the more compelling. If you like good adventure books, I definitely recommend reading "Canyons."

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Summary: A book that gets better and better as you read it
Review: "Canyons" is an interesting book and it's one of Gary Paulsen's best. Coyote Runs was a young Apache Indian that was just going through the ritual of becoming a man when he got killed by some soldiers. About 100 years later, a fourteen year old boy named Brennan finds Coyote Runs's skull while on a camping trip in the canyons. He gets attached to the skull once he starts hearing mysterious voices that are like spirits speaking to him from the skull. Brennan wants to find out more about the skull. Eventually he decides to do something with it and he won't let anybody stand in his way until he does it.

"Canyons" is a good and compelling book. Gary Paulsen alternately tells the story of Coyote Runs and Brennan, and eventually brings their two stories together to make the book even better. There are several high points in the story that seem like they're the climax of "Canyons," but as you read on you'll read even better parts, making it all the more compelling. If you like good adventure books, I definitely recommend reading "Canyons."

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Summary: Separated by 100 Years
Review: A Review by Karina

Coyote Runs is an Apache Boy who has just become a man, but soon after, soldiers attack his group. Coyote Runs is 'executed' with a bullet to his skull. About one hundred years later Brennan is camping near Dog Canyon and finds a skull pierced by a bullet in the forehead. Brennan is mentally taken over by the skull and soon he realizes that he must take it back to its sacred resting place in Dog Canyon. Canyons is about how Brennan must use everyday skills to solve a big mystery.

One thing that sets this book aside from most of Paulsen's books is that the conflict is somewhat internal between Brennan and what the skull is telling him to do... and who to be. That's one of the concepts that I really enjoy about this book. The suspense is supreme in Canyons because even in the beginning Paulsen doesn't introduce the characters through everyday events, but through action. When Brennan is running I can feel as though I'm right with him because of the excruciating detail! However, the difficulty was low mostly because of the elementary vocabulary. The climax is well organized, but I dislike how it ends in a drop off. There is a resolution, however no note to how Brennan's life continues.

If you really enjoy a book that you can't put down because of suspense and mystery then Canyons will be a great read for you! Plus it's one of the great books where the main character is intelligent and uses everyday problem solving skills, not super powers!

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Summary: It was a very good book, and I reccommend Grades 7-12
Review: Book Review a Review of Canyons

I liked the book because it showed difference in time. It showed on how spiritual the boy was, and his code of ethics. It took place in the 1970's and 1860's. I think Brennan was smart with that. He wanted to be fair to everybody. He researched on Coyote Runs. He took newspapers from 1860 since a guns had to be only a little over 250 years ago. He wanted to return Coyote Runs to his home. He wanted Brennan to bring him to his home. His home was on top of the canyon. It made a steep loop, so the Americans did not know where they lived. I liked Coyote Runs, because he was shy, but he wanted to become a man. He was naive, because when the soldier missed, the soldier accidentally shot it away from him. He wanted to get to his medicine place which is parched land, but he left a trail of blood and he was surrounded by soldiers. I liked that Brennan did not want the skull to be in a museum. He was good with that, because he kept his promise even though he violated the rules of authority. He did newspaper research from the 1860's. He found it for 1864 when there was a raid with the Apaches to take the horses. The only thing wrong was that the Indians did not fire back at the soldiers fighting them. He did not do what his mother wanted but it was the right thing to do. He hiked 20 miles to do what Coyote Runs wanted. I liked Brennan since he was shy, but he was determined. I would recommend this book to anyone in 7th through 12th grade.

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Summary: "Canyons" Review
Review: Cantons was a vert well written book which impressed me. Coyote Runs needs to show his manlyness, by going on a raid. Brennan needs to find out about the skull and bring it to where it belong because he feels that it is his dutie. Throghout the book there are many times where you can see how alike they both are. It is a great book. Reed Fulton Rules. Johnny T.T.

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Summary: "Canyons" Review
Review: Cantons was a very well written book which impressed me. Coyote Runs needs to show his manlyness, by going on a raid. Brennan needs to find out about the skull and bring it to where it belong because he feels that it is his dutie. Throghout the book there are many times where you can see how alike they both are. It is a great book. Reed Fulton Rules. Johnny T.T.

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Summary: Canyons
Review: Canyons by Gary Paulson was a very exciting book all the way from brannon having to camp with little monster kids to him finding a scull behind a cliff. It was an exeptional book and i recomend reading it.

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Summary: Reviewed for Mrs. Hassell's 5th grade class at St. John's
Review: Canyons is a great adventure story. The main characters are Brennan, Mr. Homesly and Brennan's mother. In this book Brennan stumbled over a skull with a bullet hole in it. After this, he had trouble sleeping. He had strange dreams, and he heard whispers. He finally realized that he had a quest from an Apache boy who was executed by soldiers for no reason. His quest was to return the skull to the medicine place. Could he do it? Once Brennan had a vision about Coyote Runs, the Apache boy. In his vision Brennan saw soldiers coming after him like they did to Coyote Runs. This reminds me of the time I was playing guns. I was climbing on the rough rocks of Devil's Den at Gettysburg, playing with my brother. I could see myself slipping, fearing that I might fall just like Brennan did when he climbed the cliffs with the rescue team behind him.When Brennan went camping, he was having a lot of fun. Then when he found the skull, he was scared. This reminds me of the time when I went camping in Canyonlands in Utah. It was a lot of fun at first, but then I got worried that the creek next to our tents was going to flood. That night in our sleeping bags, we heard the water come closer and closer. I was so scared I almost jumped out of my shorts! I felt just like Brennan did when he found the skull. When Brennan was doing research with Mr. Homesly, he was trying to find out more facts about Coyote Runs. He wanted to know who this boy was. When I was studying about the Civil War, I did alot of hard work looking into the past and trying to understand what happened. I was staying up late just like Brennan did looking at every detail. Canyons is a great book for kids. It's loaded with action, suspense and alot of adventure. I recommend it to every boy in our class

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Summary: an OK book
Review: Canyons is about this 14-year old boy named Brennan who lives alone with his mom, and an Indian boy named Coyote Runs who lived in the same place 200 years ago. Brennan found Coyote's skull in a canyon and researches it. When he finds out who it belonged to, (from here on the book gets really weird) the skull starts talking to him. Yup, that's right, talking to him. It wants to be taken to this ancient place. To me it sounded like Brennan was going insane at this point. Some people really get all this stuff with Coyote's spirit and everything, but I thought it sounded like a bunch of baloney. At the end Brennan gets chased by a rescue team while he's trying to get Coyote back to his ancient place. He finally gets there. And that's about it. I thought something more interesting should happen when he finally reaches the ancient place, but he just puts the skull on a rock and leaves. Overall, this book is kind of weird, but I guess you have to understand the whole idea of Coyote Runs' spirit communicating with Brennan. That's pretty hard. It took me until I got 4/5 through the book to get it.