A Hawk In The Sun

A Hawk in the Sun brilliantly shows the passion of a true scientist. The research was of the nesting and other habits of the ferruginous hawk-an extremely shy and difficult-to-study bird that is the largest hawk in North America. The reader will be emotionally involved from the fight between a pair of hawks and a coyote through the author's description of Penelope, the stay-at-home mom, to the poignant death of a hawk chick. Book jacket.

Set in the small-town, pre-civil rights South, The Hawk and the Sun is the story of one day in the life of Dandelion, a physically impaired man who is the sole black resident in the town of Tilden. Years before, the birth of a mixed-race child to a white prostitute had precipitated an outpouring of hatred against Tilden's black citizens, all of whom but Dandelion had been driven from town. In this atmosphere of smoldering self-righteousness, Dandelion survives on handouts and what little he can earn from odd jobs. Finally, the town turns against him as well. Seen hurrying from the house of the neurotic Miss Ella as her screams fill the air of an August morning, Dandelion is apprehended and falsely accused of rape. Before the day's end, he is tortured and lynched. In his rendering of Dandelion, of those who murdered him, of those who looked the other way, and of the lone white man who stood futilely against the mob, Byron Herbert Reece brings his readers face to face with the horrifying spectacle of collective fear and racism.

Adopted by the Ojibwa, Sun Hawk rises to prominence and becomes chief of his tribe. A chance encounter with a beautiful woman completely changes his life and his heart, even though they are from different worlds. Everything they treasure is threatened by villains intent on capturing her. Targeted print ads. Author Web site: www.cassieedwards.com.

This book was published in 1903 and is the text of a series of lectures delivered by the author in Aberdeen. Dr Archibald Henry Sayce was a professor of Assyriology at Oxford University. There are 20 lectures in all divided equally between the Babylonians and the Egyptian religions and customs.