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24th out of 326 books
—
431 voters
Shane
A stranger rode out of the heart of the great glowing West, into the small Wyoming valley in the summer of 1889.
It was Shane, who appeared on the horizon and became a friend and guardian to the Starrett family at a time when homesteaders and cattle rangers battled for territory and survival. Jack Schaefer’s classic novel illuminates the spirit of the West through the eyes...more
It was Shane, who appeared on the horizon and became a friend and guardian to the Starrett family at a time when homesteaders and cattle rangers battled for territory and survival. Jack Schaefer’s classic novel illuminates the spirit of the West through the eyes...more
Hardcover, 135 pages
Published
October 29th 2001
by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
(first published 1949)
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This is the book I grew up with, having it read to me as a boy. It is an American classic and considered one of the great Westerns in league only with Lonesome Dove.
This is THE novel from which the wester movie genre was created. The dark hero with a mixed and unstated past, the western town with a struggle raging between migrant farmers and cattle ranchers, the hired guns and dark saloons all comprise elements of this short story. This is THE story that gave birth to the image of the laconic co...more
This is THE novel from which the wester movie genre was created. The dark hero with a mixed and unstated past, the western town with a struggle raging between migrant farmers and cattle ranchers, the hired guns and dark saloons all comprise elements of this short story. This is THE story that gave birth to the image of the laconic co...more
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Jul 23, 2012
Checkman
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Fans of great stories
Shelves:
western,
beach-read
A classic that is more than a western. It's also a story about one of the myths of the United States - the heroic Lone Hero on the Frontier. Shane is the embodiment of the Lone Hero, someone who shares the values of the society, but has the destructive skills of the outlaws.He rides out of the wilderness to aid the band of pioneers and take on the land-grabbing cattle baron. In 2012 this is a cliche, but ,as I have pointed out in the past for other older stories, Shane is the archetype. It has a...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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3 likes · like · see review
3 likes · like · see review
The classic western that inspired the classic western movie. The Western Writers of America voted this the best western in the last 100 years and rightly so. A mysterious stranger comes to town with a clouded past that he does want to revisit. He falls in with a homesteader in Wyoming who's fighting off the machinations of a cattle baron. It's a pure western send-up and in Schaefer's sure hands it rolls along seamlessly. Schaefer captures the wide expanse of Wyoming's open ranges and the close k...more
It was a clear summer’s day when Shane first rode onto the Starrett’s farm in Wyoming. From the first moment young Bob glimpsed his lean figure and cool intensity, he knew that Shane was a special man. Bob’s father Joe and mother Marian agreed with him, and together they asked Shane to stay on and help with their ranch. He agreed.
The more time the Starretts spend with Shane the more they love him. Although not physically imposing, he radiates a quiet energy which alternately thrills and scares y...more
The more time the Starretts spend with Shane the more they love him. Although not physically imposing, he radiates a quiet energy which alternately thrills and scares y...more
Jack Schaefer has set his story at the time of Wyoming's Johnson County "wars" between cattlemen and anyone, like rustlers and homesteaders, who cut into their profits. First published in 1949, the novel also reflects something of the war that had just ended for Americans who fought in Europe and the Pacific. We have a young family struggling to put down roots on the frontier, wanting little more than an ordered life and the opportunity to make a living among a gathering of neighbors who want th...more
Summary: The book that I read for English class was called "Shane", by Jack Schaefer. Shane is about a man named Shane who rides into a small valley and ends up living on a small farm which is owned by the Starret family. Shane is not your tipical stranger. He has a very cold look in his eye. He is a very mysterious person. The Starret family is glad to have him around. Shane protects them from Fletcher and his cattle hands. Fletcher wants all of the land he can get before the spring comes so he...more
Not a fan of westerns, never seen the movie with Alan Ladd, and had my doubts as to whether this 1949 title should be kept.
It should.
I haven't decided on a reader for it yet, because the first half of the book is a lyrical character study of a drifter who arrives at a farm in Wyoming in 1889. While the family is happy, trouble is brewing. The father hires Shane to help with the work, and ends up getting more help than he bargains from the enigmatic stranger whose every move whispers "danger".
Onc...more
It should.
I haven't decided on a reader for it yet, because the first half of the book is a lyrical character study of a drifter who arrives at a farm in Wyoming in 1889. While the family is happy, trouble is brewing. The father hires Shane to help with the work, and ends up getting more help than he bargains from the enigmatic stranger whose every move whispers "danger".
Onc...more
A mysterious drifter rides into the lives of Wyoming homesteaders who are being threatened by a powerful cattle rancher.
His name is Shane. He takes a quiet yet powerful stance that is keenly observed by Bob Starrett, a 12-year old boy. It is through Bob's eyes the story is told. The book was originally published in 1949. Perhaps this is why I found some of the language and descriptions to be odd. Bob is quite fixated on Shane. Some of the descriptions border on homoerotic. Bob also continually...more
His name is Shane. He takes a quiet yet powerful stance that is keenly observed by Bob Starrett, a 12-year old boy. It is through Bob's eyes the story is told. The book was originally published in 1949. Perhaps this is why I found some of the language and descriptions to be odd. Bob is quite fixated on Shane. Some of the descriptions border on homoerotic. Bob also continually...more
It's been a really good thing for me to categorize my library. I have found a lot of jewels that I know I probably picked up at DI and then forgot about (how silly of me, I know!). This book must be one of those. Found it last night on the top shelf of the "man & boy" shelves.
Anyway, perhaps I'm too effusive with my stars, but I usually give books stars based on how much I enjoyed them or how much they changed my life. This one falls into the first category. What a great little book! Hubby...more
Anyway, perhaps I'm too effusive with my stars, but I usually give books stars based on how much I enjoyed them or how much they changed my life. This one falls into the first category. What a great little book! Hubby...more
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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I knew I would enjoy this book before I read it. After all, one of the best western movies of all time is based on the story. I never get tired of watching the Alan Ladd film classic directed by George Stevens, with a perfectly chosen cast. Especially noteworthy is Jack Palance, billed as Walter Jack Palance in one of his best bad-guy performances as the evil hired killer Stark Wilson.
If you've enjoyed the movie, don't miss the book. Whereas the former is primarily action-oriented, the latter co...more
If you've enjoyed the movie, don't miss the book. Whereas the former is primarily action-oriented, the latter co...more
BOTTOM LINE: The Old West, from the viewpoint of a young boy. Even better than the movie.
Everybody knows the story: ex-gunfighter winds up working for a small farmer in his fight against a big rancher. The movie got most of the story right, with surprising fidelity to this gentle tale of Big Men and the frontier ethos. The book does give a bit more depth to the characters and allows the richness of the setting to permeate. Love of the Land is the central theme, and the kindness of good folks onc...more
Everybody knows the story: ex-gunfighter winds up working for a small farmer in his fight against a big rancher. The movie got most of the story right, with surprising fidelity to this gentle tale of Big Men and the frontier ethos. The book does give a bit more depth to the characters and allows the richness of the setting to permeate. Love of the Land is the central theme, and the kindness of good folks onc...more
This is a must read with your family! Having just reread this with my daughters it still holds up to how I remember it from being a kid! I would have read this in grade 8 or 9 (27 years ago) and parts are still etched into my brain:
I can still vividly remember the adult bonding over the removal of the huge stump... how they didn't hitch up the horses at the end, and how they weren't going to let the stump beat them.
The theme of the dark stranger, with an obvious dark past he's trying to escape,...more
I can still vividly remember the adult bonding over the removal of the huge stump... how they didn't hitch up the horses at the end, and how they weren't going to let the stump beat them.
The theme of the dark stranger, with an obvious dark past he's trying to escape,...more
Shane By Jack Schaefer,
Shane is a book written by Jack Schaefer. Shane is a western book that shows how even a first person story can still show how other characters develop in the story. The story begins as the narrator (Bob Starrett) watches a mysterious man rides up to his home asking for some food and water, but Bobs father (Joe Starrett) asks the man to stay. The man tells the family that his name is Shane, nothing more nothing less.Shane stays for the night and a few more days due to weat...more
Shane is a book written by Jack Schaefer. Shane is a western book that shows how even a first person story can still show how other characters develop in the story. The story begins as the narrator (Bob Starrett) watches a mysterious man rides up to his home asking for some food and water, but Bobs father (Joe Starrett) asks the man to stay. The man tells the family that his name is Shane, nothing more nothing less.Shane stays for the night and a few more days due to weat...more
What is the best Western ever written? For my money, that’s an easy one: Shane, by Jack Schaefer. (I know the movie is also considered to be a great classic, but to me, Alan Ladd just doesn't match up to the hero described in the book.)
This quintessential tale of good-versus-evil is also one of the shortest — my copy has only 119 pages, making it pocket-portable. It is the ideal summer read for any young adult, male or female.
What's so great about it?
The character for whom the book is named is t...more
This quintessential tale of good-versus-evil is also one of the shortest — my copy has only 119 pages, making it pocket-portable. It is the ideal summer read for any young adult, male or female.
What's so great about it?
The character for whom the book is named is t...more
Shane is an enigmatic character that belongs right up there with Captain Nemo and Captain Ahab. Such a pity his name isn't Captain Shane. But once you strip away the awesomeness that is Shane, this is simply a book about a homeless drifter who showed up and put a flower in his hat and immediately ingratiated himself into the Starrett family. They quickly offer him employment, room, and board. He turns out to be an expert farmer, builder, horseback rider, shooter, and plenty of other things I'm s...more
About halfway through this book I realized it was categorized as teen fiction. This made the story a little more palpable, but still hard to get past the woodenness of the archetypal characters. Shane is the name of the protagonist who is a deadly man, trying to walk the straight and narrow with the narrator's father. The narrator is a boy of ten (Bob) and is in awe of both his father and Shane. There are some great scenes of the family working together on the land, but as the novel descends int...more
This book was given to me by a boyfriend I had as a teenager (that was a LONG time ago) so it has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. I wasn't much of a reader back then... I think maybe I read a few pages, put it down, and never picked it up again. Which is a shame, because it's a great little book. More like a novella than a novel, at only 120 pages, it's a charming story set back in the late 1800's about a man with a dark past who comes riding into town on his horse and changes the lives...more
Jul 10, 2011
Lisa (Harmonybites)
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Young Readers
Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List
A mysterious stranger rides up to a lonely homestead. That's an archetypal Western figure, familiar in my reading of Westerns from a recommendation list, and certainly Shane is much better written and worth the reading than Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage or Louis L'Amour's Hondo or Max Brand's Destry Rides Again, even if I think this can't really match the classic 1953 film adaptation with Alan Ladd. The title character Shane is presented as a mythic figure, which is something of the book...more
Had to read it for school in the 8th grade, and it was horribly bland. Searching my mind for various memories of the 8th grade lead me to this book.
Shane, set in the Old West, tells a story of a boy, and an lone stranger. This mysterious stranger, named Shane is practically an vigilante who is running away from something( that thing is never implied).
The first 4 chapters are about the boys father and Shane cutting a dead tree. SERIOUSLY!!! you got to be kidding me, was my thought when i read th...more
Shane, set in the Old West, tells a story of a boy, and an lone stranger. This mysterious stranger, named Shane is practically an vigilante who is running away from something( that thing is never implied).
The first 4 chapters are about the boys father and Shane cutting a dead tree. SERIOUSLY!!! you got to be kidding me, was my thought when i read th...more
This one is probably a shade closer to 3 1/2 stars than three. And it may pale a bit by my having seen Alan Ladd and Jack Palance a few too many times.
This isn't the stereotypical shoot 'em up western. There's action...but it's not the focus of the book. The focus is a quieter look at the myth of the west. And ultimately that's what Schaefer gives us. It's a western myth. Shane is the Demi-God who rides in and out of the lives of the mortals. Making it (their lives) better...and in some ways wo...more
This isn't the stereotypical shoot 'em up western. There's action...but it's not the focus of the book. The focus is a quieter look at the myth of the west. And ultimately that's what Schaefer gives us. It's a western myth. Shane is the Demi-God who rides in and out of the lives of the mortals. Making it (their lives) better...and in some ways wo...more
A fantastic book, or at least a well-read one.
I'm not really a huge fan of Westerns, but this one did the job well. It was particularly interesting to read this having seen and taught the movie (which I don't really like) several times. The movie really does capture the important themes out of the book, even if it doesn't quite carry the struggle Shane himself goes through.
Shane carries all the standard Western-genre issues: what is the difference between civilization and barbarism, and how do...more
I'm not really a huge fan of Westerns, but this one did the job well. It was particularly interesting to read this having seen and taught the movie (which I don't really like) several times. The movie really does capture the important themes out of the book, even if it doesn't quite carry the struggle Shane himself goes through.
Shane carries all the standard Western-genre issues: what is the difference between civilization and barbarism, and how do...more
Westerns are so far out of my comfort zone of genres that I didn't have many expectations at all for this book, but if I had it would have exceeded them all. There is always something different about seeing a story--that, quite possibly, has been told a hundred times over--through the eyes of a child. The charged sexual tension between the adult characters and the undercurrents of social relations between the different groups in the town are masked by the naive view of the narrator. It is a stor...more
Anna read this for her Heroic Men and Women English class (2nd sememster junior year), so I decided to read it, too. She really liked it, but I wasn't so enthusiastic about it. It is a classic western with the dark and mysterious stranger who comes and saves the family farm, kills a couple of men, and then disappears into the mountains. It was well written, from the perspective of the young son of the farmer. It had lots of light and dark images, a suggestion of godliness about the mysterious st...more
This was one of the best books I read when I was still a pre-teen, lovely innocent and happy (me) It was like a fantasy coming to life, where a man as noble and as good as the stereotypical hero in every faerie tale graced my whole all female class. I think we all feel in love that semester.
Shane is a tale of a real cowboy, who was strong, silent, intelligent yet unwanted by some. He did not live and die by his gun though, he was one who wanted to make peace.
The part that really struck me was...more
Shane is a tale of a real cowboy, who was strong, silent, intelligent yet unwanted by some. He did not live and die by his gun though, he was one who wanted to make peace.
The part that really struck me was...more
Bought this for a class I ended up taking but was intrigued.. it looked so hokey but entertaining!
Finally read it today.
cried at the end.
WOW, i just loved this from start to finish. The vivid language, the wholesome values, the typical good, hardworking farmer versus evil, cheating, landowner..
looking through the eyes of a boy.
the family dynamic.
SHANE. SHANE was just DOPE. hahahah.
seriously.
so .
cool.
i love a good story. this was a good story.
even the build up of each level... each "fight" he g...more
Finally read it today.
cried at the end.
WOW, i just loved this from start to finish. The vivid language, the wholesome values, the typical good, hardworking farmer versus evil, cheating, landowner..
looking through the eyes of a boy.
the family dynamic.
SHANE. SHANE was just DOPE. hahahah.
seriously.
so .
cool.
i love a good story. this was a good story.
even the build up of each level... each "fight" he g...more
I am not much for westerns, but this book is fantastic. There's a reason the hard-as-nails, dangerous-but-trustworthy hero is so popular in books and movies--when done well, it works. And this books does it very well.
Like Little Britches, the story is told through the eyes of a child, and to great effect. And the author keeps the hero shrouded in mystery throughout the story, which keeps the reader on edge and makes Shane excellent fodder for the narrator's hero-worship. And Shane's inner strug...more
Like Little Britches, the story is told through the eyes of a child, and to great effect. And the author keeps the hero shrouded in mystery throughout the story, which keeps the reader on edge and makes Shane excellent fodder for the narrator's hero-worship. And Shane's inner strug...more
Excellent. On the surface a dime-store western but dig deeper and you'll find a remarkably American novella that captures through the characterization of its primary players a complex tapestry of the longing for a better tomorrow in the face of a troubled past and despite a recognition of one's resposnibility to oneself, and more importantly, to those for whom one cares. This is another of the many pieces assigned for classroom reading by students at the 7-9 grades who's value and themes are lik...more
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Schaefer was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of an attorney. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1929 with a major in English. He attended graduate school at Columbia University from 1929-30, but left without completing his Master of Arts degree. He then went to work for the United Press. In his long career as a journalist, he would hold editorial positions at many eastern publications.
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