Wednesday, June 09, 2010

The Misadventures of Maude March or Trouble Rides a Fast Horse

Wanted: "Mad" Maude March.....notorious Maude March, a girl reported to be just fifteen years of age, held up the Des Moines Savings & Trust on Friday morning. Eyewitnesses told authorities that she passed for a man & shot like an outlaw....

Eleven year old Sallie March is a whip-smart tomboy & voracious reader of Western adventure novels, also called "dime novels". When she & her ladylike older sister Maude are orphaned for the second time, they decide to take matters into their own hands & escape their self-serving guardians for the wilds of the frontier & an adventure the likes of which Sallie has only read about.

This time, however, the "wanted women" isn't a dime-novel villain, it's Sallie's very own sister! And while life on the run has it's perks - not having to wear a dress, for starters - pretty soon the horse thieving & bank robbing & bandits are more than ever Sallie bargained for.

Narrated by the irrepressible Sallie, What follows is the rollicking, edge-of-your-seat story of what really happened out there on the range. Not the lies the papers printed, but the honest-to-goodness truth of how things went from bad to worse & how two very different sisters went from being orphans to being outlaws & lived to tell the tale!

The Misadventures of Maude March is Newbery Honor winner Audrey Couloumbis's most unforgettable work yet.

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