Down the Long Hills

by Louis L'Amour

Book Overview

Everyone was dead. Indian raiders massacred the entire wagon train. Only seven-year-old Hardy Collins and three-year-old Betty Sue Powell, managed to survive. With a knife, a faithful stallion, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553280813
• ISBN13: 9780553280814
• Release Date: September 1984
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.3" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

All time favorite book

Everything the others have said, and then some. I've often thought it would have made a great Disney movie back when Disney still made great family movies. It's ultimately the story of the unfailing love between a parent and child.

The Will to Survive

DOWN THE LONG HILLS won famed western writer Louis L'Amour the Golden Spur Award and it is a very special read. Many times misclassified as a book for children it is a book for all ages who enjoy the heroism of the West at its finest. The main characters are two children and a horse who against all odds make their way though a winter storm because the young boy knows his father will be looking for him. Luck, craftiness, and observation give them the skills to follow their trail. One of the best books to begin if you have just discovered the storytelling skill of Louis L'Amour. Writing as a Small BusinessTravelersNatchez Above The River: A Family's Survival In The Civil WarSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County Novel

My All Time Favorite Luis L'Amour!

Down the Long Hills is as far as I know, the only book Louis L'Amour wrote where the main characters are kids, little kids at that. I have now read perhaps a hundred books by L'Amour and I have enjoyed every single one of them, even if I did find a few of them to be not nearly as good as most of them. This one though, Down The Long Hills, it is my favorite! After I'd read it I gave a copy to my sister, who is a second grade teacher. She read it and loved it too, and I doubt if she had ever read any Westerns before. She was so impressed on how tough the little boy and little girl in the story were...at how much they knew, compared to children now who have things so much easier. My sister is now reading Down the Long Hills to her own classes, a few pages each day, and the kids are all captivated by it. I fully expect that if this book were promoted as a kids' book, or as a young adult book, that it would become a huge, smash it. But don't think that the book is just for kids because it isn't at all. Adults will love this book too, for sure. I am a writer myself with five published books to my credit and I know and understand how difficult it is to write a book where the action just jumps off the page. No writer of Westerns was more a master of the craft than Luis L'Amour, and this little book may well be his finest. All of Louis L'Amour's books are fun to read and action packed but this story really gets to you. The first few pages of Down the Long Hills are as well crafted as any novel I've ever read. The reader is immediately tossed head over heels right into the action and the fast paced adventure never lets up for a second. Down the Long Hills is a wonderful, marvelous tall tale, an all around terrific read. I recommend it highly!

the best

You cannot put this books down. I try to forget it so I can read it again every few years. Not like L'Amour's other books, the shoot em up, good guy gets the girl. This one is different. Not that I have the most exalted taste, but I was an English major and now am a librarian, so I have read a few books...This is a winner. Anyone age 10 and up can read it and love it. Read it to kids a little younger than that.

5 Golden Spurs as little boy lost makes his way

Having seen a number of movies and TV shows based on Louis L'Amour's novels, and having listened to a number of his stories on audiotape, I thought I would read some of his stories that won Golden Spur awards. To my surprise Down the Long Hills was the only one I could find. It is an excellent tale and a winner on all accounts.Down the Long Hills is really a novella. The paperback version is only 150 pages long and a quick read. I almost gave up on it because I thought it was a children's story. While it is written simply enough such that a juvenile reader could enjoy it, it is written for adults. The reader can identify what it is like to be a child in the wilderness, abandoned and without parents. A parent can identify with the fear of losing a child.The story features a 7-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl who follows him escaping an Indian massacre. The boy, appropriately named Hardy, must try and find his father while being tracked by Indians and 2 crooks. Hardy uses every trick he has learned in his short life to throw the bad guys off his trail yet leave signs for his father. Eventually all parties converge for a rip-snorting climax.This is a great western, if not politically correct, in this day and age. The only problem that I had with it is that some of the dates don't work. Hardy's father was supposed to be over 15 when the Royal Navy pressed him. Yet the story is set in 1848. Given that the Napoleonic wars ended 33 years before the story and that the Royal Navy had to downsize decommissioning sailors not pressing them, Hardy's father is either a lot older than he seems in the story or L'Amour has an anachronism. However, this is a minor point.Down the Long Hills is a great story and shows why L'Amour should have received more critical acclaim than he did.

...Great adventure...L'amour has you scanning ahead ...

When the kids are stranded,after the wagon train massacree,they have limited resources to sustain themselves,but...they do have the magnificent red stallion,who lives for the young boy...trailed by an indian brave plus ruthless outlaws,they make their way accross the vast,seemingly endless prairie...throw in a renegade bear and rapidly approaching cruel,bitter winter conditions,this story comes together in a"hurriedly turning the next page"climax....FIVE STARS+