Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 Best of that genre December 17, 2007
This is by far my favorite book from that genre. I first read it in high school and have gone back several times over the years. I just purchased it again to give to my 13 year old daughter.
Farolitos and chamisa July 2, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I grew up in Santa Fe, reading this book, serving Mr. Bradford coffee at Zook's Pharmacy on the Plaza. Mr. Bradford's book reassured me that my turbulent adolescence was do-able, by lighting the way.
I have not been back there in thirty years. Santa Fe has been taken over by the rich and the entitled and they have squeezed the soul out of what we knew growing up there, though there is plenty of beauty and spirit left to be sucked dry by the commercial people. But if you want to know the siren song of Santa Fe, read this book. Sagrado is, indeed, Santa Fe. This was what it was like there even in the 1960's and 1970's.
I mean, where else could you have that unforgettable horse AND world-class opera AND the mountains AND the humility of entertaining the Native Americans by just being white people on the Plaza?
I read this book, I can smell the pine wood burning in the farolitos, and the breeze in the chamisa after the Summer afternoon cloudbursts.
An All-Time Coming of Age Story May 6, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a wondrous short novel. Read it if you'd like to be a teenager again. Buy an old paperback copy showing a teenage boy and girl standing facing each other with their foreheads touching--a very sweet illustration.
Now a good review (recommendation) doesn't have to be long, so let me give you a few lines of description. A boy moves from Alabama to New Mexico during World War II, and while his father is away in the war, the boy finds friends and a home in the small mountain town of Sagrado. One of his new friends is an sculptor who carves stone heads and places them on a hillside.
On the great book cover: Sometimes book covers actually decline in quality with the many printings of a book. This has happened with "Red Sky At Morning," but remember you are buying the book for the story.
Another example of the decline in a book's cover is seen in the early cover for "Summer of Night," by Dan Simmons.Summer of Night (Aspect Fantasy) The 1991 "Warner Book" edition has a window with a cut out. Through the window you can see some boys riding their bicycles at night. When you open the book, you see a mysterious school in the background.
The later covers of "Summer of Night" were not half as mysterious or fun.
Wonderful Read July 20, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I thouroughly enjoyed this book, I do not know how I missed it for so many years. It was recommended in Nancy Pearl's "Book Lust" (which you really should buy if you are an avid reader.) I have never been dissapointed by her recommendations.
Josh, as the narrator in "Red Sky at Morning" is a 17 year old high school senior at the end of WWII. His dry wit mad me laugh right out loud several times. I loved his sensibility and humor. The cast of characters in this book reminded me of some of the characters in "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving.
This is one of my favorite reads of the year, so much so I will probably hunt down a hard cover edition for my collection.
My copy is literally falling apart, I've read it so much. April 16, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
As many others have said, it's impossible to get tired of this book. My parents gave it to me when I was 18 and (again, like several others) the first time I read it I found it a little slow and disjointed. It gets better and better with every read - each time I pick up on the subtleties of a scene for the first time.
Rather than boring the reader with a bunch of obnoxious capers and hijinks, Bradford envelops you in his characters' community, and it's this day-to-day banality (which turned me off so much the first time) that really draws you into the story. Josh's adjustment to Sagrado takes time, but when it comes it's so natural and amusing that you're almost completely unprepared for the sobering conclusion of the story.
I had no idea the book was so loved until I read these reviews. There are so many special moments in the story - the big wet snowfalls that ruins Chamaco's fiesta, the horribly backward residents of La Cima, the refreshing "white trashiness" of the Cloyd sisters, even Parker Holmes tearing an elk sandwich apart with his teeth.
I wish these characters existed in real life, and I wish I could be their friend.
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