From Newbery Award winner Phyllis Reynolds Naylor comes a witty tale of the Wild West filled with comical cliffhangers and featuring a cast of plucky orphans and dastardly villains.
Emily Wiggins is poor and timid, without a drop of self-confidence. When she is unexpectedly orphaned, she is left all alone except for her turtle, Rufus.
What in blinkin' bloomers should Emily do?
Emily's neighbors, Mrs. Ready, Mrs. Aim, and Mrs. Fire, have the answer: Emily must travel by stagecoach to the home of her honorable aunt Hilda.
What a rootin' tootin' grand idea!
But Miss Catchum of the Catchum Child-Catching Services will get a big bonus for delivering Emily to her next of kin, the vicious Uncle Victor.
How the ding dong dickens will Emily escape Miss Catchum?
It will take all the gumption and cunning of fellow orphan and traveler Jackson to help Emily find her confidence, her conniving spirit, and the true reason Uncle Victor wants to claim her.
But how in flippin' flapjacks will Emily outsmart Uncle Victor?
Newbery Award winner Naylor claims that she tries to never write the same kind of book twice, and although she has written westerns before, including Walker's Crossing (1999), this could be seen as her first of the rootin'-tootin' variety. When her mother and the wealthy woman she works for are killed in a carriage accident, meek Emily sets out to find her loving aunt. Trouble is, the wealthy woman left a considerable fortune to Emily, and her villainous uncle Victor would sure like to get his hands on all that cash. Most of the story takes place on a stagecoach out west as Emily and fellow orphan Jackson muster all their cunning and pluck to outwit Victor, and a good deal of the appeal comes from Naylor's feisty chapter cliff-hangers: “What in shootin' shivers would Emily do now?” It all makes for a fun, bouncy ride, though one might wish for a few more of Collins' scene-stealing pencil sketches. As there simply aren't many westerns for young girls, this happily plugs a hole in the genre. Grades 3-5. --Ian Chipman
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
I guess I've been writing for about as long as I can remember. Telling stories, anyway, if not writing them down. I had my first short story published when I was sixteen, and wrote stories to help put myself through college, planning to become a clinical psychologist. By the time I graduated with a BA degree, however, I decided that writing was really my first love, so I gave up plans for graduate school and began writing full time.
I'm not happy unless I spend some time writing every day. It's as though pressure builds up inside me, and writing even a little helps to release it. On a hard-writing day, I write about six hours. Tending to other writing business, answering mail, and just thinking about a book takes another four hours. I spend from three months to a year on a children's book, depending on how well I know the characters before I begin and how much research I need to do. A novel for adults, because it's longer, takes a year or more. When my work is going well, I wake early in the mornings, hoping it's time to get up. When the writing is hard and the words are flat, I'm not very pleasant to be around.
Getting an idea for a book is the easy part. Keeping other ideas away while I'm working on one story is what's difficult. My books are based on things that have happened to me, things I have heard or read about, all mixed up with imaginings. The best part about writing is the moment a character comes alive on paper, or when a place that existed only in my head becomes real. There are no bands playing at this moment, no audience applauding--a very solitary time, actually--but it's what I like most. I've now had more than 120 books published, and about 2000 short stories, articles and poems.
I live in Bethesda, Maryland, with my husband, Rex, a speech pathologist, who's the first person to read my manuscripts when they're finished. Our sons, Jeff and Michael, are grown now, but along with their wives and children, we often enjoy vacations together in the mountains or at the ocean. When I'm not writing, I like to hike, swim, play the piano and attend the theater.
I'm lucky to have my family, because they have contributed a great deal to my books. But I'm also lucky to have the troop of noisy, chattering characters who travel with me inside my head. As long as they are poking, prodding, demanding a place in a book, I have things to do and stories to tell.
I'll admit it- I flip through the children's books at my part-time job at the bookstore. There's just something incredibly fun in most children's books that seems to stretch across the age boundaries, if that book is well written. Since this book has been written by the author of Shiloh, you can expect it to be an entertaining read.
Emily's mother is a housekeeper for the insanely wealthy Mrs. Nash (emphasis on the insane). When an overturned buggy turns her into an orphan, Emily knows that the only place left for her is with her Aunt Hilda in Redbud. The only other known relative is the dastardly Uncle Victor, an awful man who has never treated Emily or her mother well. With child catchers & an evil uncle to avoid & an unexpected inheritance to claim, Emily is finding that the road to her new home is more difficult to travel than she'd expected, even if she does have her new friend Jackson & her pet turtle Rufus to help her along the way.
Parents, rest assured that this book is appropriate for your children. While there are two deaths at the beginning of the book, there isn't anything objectionable in this book. There's a nice adventure here, but no real threats. You won't have to worry about nightmares or overly gory scenes in this book.
Now for my opinions on the book. Even though I loved the descriptions of Emily's original life, I felt like the book was a little slow to start out. It really isn't until Victor makes his first appearance in the book that I felt that the story really came to life. The characters in this book are really cute & I liked Emily & Jackson's interactions. I also thought that the illustrations were incredibly charming & easily my favorite part of the book. I also enjoyed the cute endings to each chapter, which made the book feel as if it was a tale being read by firelight to a group of children for fun. Basically put, this book just made me smile at how cute it was.
I know that if I'd read this book when I was about 8, I'd have adored it & I'm pretty sure that the average young reader will as well. As it is, I'm certain that my niece will love the plucky Emily & my nephew will like reading about stagecoaches & devious uncles.
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This is one of the neatest stories I've ever read!! It's fun, funny, and keeps you reading! And I didn't even fall asleep reading it, which I do so often with other books. I was hooked on this book from the beginning. I am amazed at what variety of books Ms. Naylor has written. As another reviewer wrote, it is a very decent book--other than the two deaths and a swear word here or there--and you won't be able to stop reading it until you reach the last page!!
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This is a GREAT story that my 8 year old son and I are enjoying together. We read one chapter every night and we both find that we have to fight ourselves to ONLY read ONE chapter! In fact, last night we cheated and read two. Neither of us can WAIT until we get to the end to find out what happens, but we both agree that we'll be sad at the same time, to see the story end.
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