Kirjahaku

Eleven-year-old Ruby is in a pickle. After years of traveling the mountains and hills of Colorado with her Pa and their donkey, Maude, Pa decides to settle down in the booming gold-mining town of Cripple Creek. Worse than that, Pa decides it's time for Ruby to learn something about being a lady. Vinegar and baking soda don't mix. Ruby faces the prospects of having to wear a corset, learning the art of elocution, and the possibility of having the school headmistress for a mother. Events lead Ruby into the midst of the 1896 Cripple Creek fire and culminate with the kidnapping and rescue of Maude from the clutches of a local scoundrel.

"At first I thought everything in America would look like New York City, with shops and crowded streets, but I have discovered, the farther west we travel, that there are long stretches of nothing. Absolutely nothing. I only hope the place we are going to is not so empty."Nancy Oswald's first work of historical fiction is based on a Russian Jewish colony that settled in Cotopaxi, Colorado, in 1882. Told from the viewpoint of eleven-year-old Emma, the book vividly portrays the hardships and struggles of the colony. The settlers were promised housing and rich ground for farming. Instead, the land is rocky and of poor quality. The houses are small and unfinished, and the colonists lack equipment and livestock for tilling and planting.The actual Jewish settlers faced many of the same hardships that Emma and her family did. There was an early frost, and the crops were stunted. The colonists were threatened by marauding bears and visited in the winter by starving Indians, who came to their doors begging for food.

In 1858 Edward Wynkoop arrived in the frontier town of Denver City. He was twenty-two years old and soon became a town leader and Denver's first sheriff. During the American Civil War, he joined the Colorado Volunteers and played an important role in the Union victory at the Battle of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico.After the Civil War, Wynkoop worked to see that the Plains Indians were treated fairly. He was a popular public figure until he spoke out in protest after the Sand Creek Massacre. His investigations into the actions of Colonel John Chivington's men at Sand Creek turned the public against him. Today he is a hero to Coloradans. Wynkoop Street in Denver is named for him.Number Seventeen in the Now You Know Bio series.Winner of the Spur Award from Western Writers of America.

Ruby May Oliver lives a good life on the rugged Colorado mountain trails of the 1890s with her pa. As the author tells us, Ruby "had faced mountain lions, grizzlies, wolves, rattlesnakes, and angry badgers; she'd hiked miles through a snowstorm, had her toes frozen, her nose frost-nipped, and climbed to the top of tall peaks." In Trouble Returns, the third in the series, she faces her greatest challenge yet-school. With the help of Maude and Trouble, her donkey and cat, she outsmarts the school bully and an outlaw train robber. If you haven't met Ruby, Maude, and Trouble, you're in for a treat and a surprise ending. Enjoy - Lois Ruby, author of Steal Away Home

Bat, Bandits & Buggies is the fourth book in the Ruby and Maude Adventure Series. These books can be read in any order. In Colorado Springs, the summer of 1898, thirteen-year-old, Ruby is bored, bored, bored. What starts out as a plan to train her donkey, Maude, to pull a buggy, ends up in a prickly business deal with her friend Roy, who has run away from Cripple Creek to escape his misery of working in the mines. Roy lives with his peculiar Aunt Agnes, the caretaker of a mansion where things go bump in the night. Ruby suspects his aunt is involved with two bandits who dress in black and appear and disappear without a trace. After eavesdropping on a mysterious couple, Ruby is terrified Roy may be the bandits' next target. Her suspicions come true when the gun-brandishing bandits capture her and Roy. Will the two escape? Is there a connection between the bandits, Aunt Agnes, and the mansion? What other surprises await Ruby and Roy in their seemingly sleepy little town? Find out in Bats, Bandits, & Buggies.

This is the second edition of Trouble on the Tracks. Join Ruby May Oliver and her donkey and best friend, Maude as they return to the mining town of Cripple Creek in 1896 and find a new friend when a cat named Trouble entwines itself around Maude's legs and Ruby's heart. Trouble and the adventurous eleven-year-olds Ruby and Maude try to stay out of trouble during the chaos following two fires in one week that have nearly destroyed the town. Can Ruby help it if she must interfere with a lynch mob ready to string up her friend Amos? And how was she to know that she would be stuck if she climbed out on the church roof? And about that business of getting trapped under a moving train, that was a mistake too. Had Ruby known the train was going to leave the station, she would have left Trouble to fend for herself. As in the first Ruby and Maude Adventure, discouraging Pa's budding romantic interest in Miss Sternum, the schoolmarm, remains paramount on Ruby's mind. Ruby's fervent desire is that she and Pa will return to their old life of roaming from mining town to mining town in the Rockies. Trouble on the Tracks is Nancy Oswald's fourth work of historical fiction set in Colorado. A fun romp through the Old West, written with humor and charm. Ruby and Maude confront family troubles and thieving outlaws with spunk, smarts, and daring. The friendship between girl and donkey will delight readers of all ages. -Kathleen Ernst, award-winning author of the Caroline Abbott series from American Girl Ruby and Maude's friendship deepens the story and will endear them to readers of all ages. I'm counting on more chapters from colorful Cripple Creek -Mary Cronk Farrell, award-winning MG/YA author Trouble on the Tracks is the second book in the Ruby and Maude Adventure book series. These books can be read in any order.