From Publishers Weekly
In 1904, 15-year-old Amanda Guthridge leaves the comforts of San Francisco to accompany her mother on the difficult trek to Texas. The girl is unhappy about the trip, the purpose of which is to locate and corral a herd of buffalo. Determined to help save these animals from extinction, Mrs. Guthridge enlists several men to serve as guides during this often perilous mission. The skilled, handsome leader of the group is a half-Comanche teenager, David Talltree, who dismisses Amanda as a "spoiled brat." Furious, she's bent on proving him wrong, and in doing so transforms their combative relationship into a romantic one. Wallace ( A Dog Called Kitty ; Beauty ) colorfully depicts the trials along the trail: dodging an alligator, a rattlesnake, a thunderous hailstorm, a ferocious buffalo. Some elements are farfetched--the seemingly unacademic David, for example, is suddenly accepted to Harvard Law School; Amanda is consumed with ill will ("I hated my family") but with unusual rapidity becomes spirited and warm-hearted. Yet her story may well garner the interest of those who enjoy historical fiction. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
Grade 7-10-- Amanda Guthridge is the daughter of wealthy parents who are prominent members of the American Bison Society in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. When her strong-willed mother decides that she will participate in the rescue of a dwindling herd of buffalo in Texas, Amanda is forced to leave her comfortable social circle to accompany her. There she is both attracted to and repelled by David Talltree, a half-Comanche boy who is to guide them on the rescue and who treats her with contempt. She gains his grudging respect when she nearly beats him in a horse race; in the classic manner of romantic westerns, that respects turns to love. Readers who have enjoyed Theodore Taylor's Walking Up a Rainbow (Dell, 1988) and Patricia Beatty's novels for older readers will appreciate the informal language, stock characters (feisty heroine, arrogant hero who has a change of heart, fatherly camp cook, etc.), and standard genre suspense (encounters with rattlesnakes, riding out the treacherous thunderstorm, and near tragedy in a buffalo stampede, etc.) in this fast-paced novel. This is a fictionalized image of the West with realistic trappings--it is highly unlikely that greenhorns, particularly women alone, would have received the polite treatment given the Guthridges--or even been allowed to participate in such an event. However, the book will be enjoyed by young romantics, and may provoke discussions of the role women played in the settlement of the West as well as of the accuracy of Wallace's portrait of them. --Barbara Chatton, College of Education, Univ . of Wyoming, Laramie
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
