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Summary
Summary
Francis Tucket and his adopted family, Lottie and Billy, are heading west in search of Francis's parents on the Oregon Trail. But when winter comes early, Francis turns south to avoid the cold, and leads them right into enemy territory--the Mexican War of 1848. Francis and the children are captured by desperadoes, but loyalty, courage, and the element of surprise offer hope for survival.
Author Notes
Gary Paulsen was born on May 17, 1939 in Minnesota. He was working as a satellite technician for an aerospace firm in California when he realized he wanted to be a writer. He left his job and spent the next year in Hollywood as a magazine proofreader. His first book, Special War, was published in 1966. He has written more than 175 books for young adults including Brian's Winter, Winterkill, Harris and Me, Woodsong, Winterdance, The Transall Saga, Soldier's Heart, This Side of Wild, and Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books. Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room are Newbery Honor Books. He was the recipient of the 1997 Margaret A. Edwards Award for his lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The third book in the series that began with Mr. Tucket finds Francis and his adopted family on the Oregon Trail and in the Mexican War. Ages 10-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
In this sequel to 'Mr. Tucket' and 'Call Me Francis Tucket', the protagonist, accompanied by a pair of young orphans, continues searching for his parents in the American Southwest. When the trio is captured by bandits, an old acquaintance of Tucket's arrives just in time to save their lives. The staccato writing style and underdeveloped plot make this offering less meaty than the previous volumes. From HORN BOOK 1997, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 4^-7. The third book featuring Francis Tucket (Mr. Tucket, 1994, and Call Me Francis Tucket, 1995) finds the resourceful 15-year-old traveling west with orphans Lottie and Billy, whom he rescued in the previous book. Although their destination is Oregon, where Francis' parents have probably settled, the three have been sidetracked by winter weather and the Rocky Mountains and end up far southwest in Mexican territory. After he kills a U.S. Cavalry soldier in self-defense, Francis and the children are captured by a marauding band of Comancheros, rescued by Francis' old friend Mr. Grimes, and finally head off again for Oregon. As always, Paulsen's hero struggles to survive in the face of several near-death experiences, though in this story, humans, rather than nature, are the enemy. This quick, satisfying read for adventure enthusiasts will be popular with readers of the earlier titles. --Kay Weisman
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6Paulsen's saga of the (often) lone boy on the American frontier in the 1840s continues here at a breakneck pace. It is now two years after Francis was abducted by the Wicked Pawnee and then saved by the Wily Mountain Man Jason Grimes in Mr. Tucket (Delacorte, 1994). He and the two orphans he picked up in Call Me Francis Tucket (Delacorte, 1995) are now trying to get to Oregon via Mexico and accidentally get tangled with armies pursuing the Mexican War. No sooner does Francis escape execution for killing a soldier than the three youngsters fall into the hands of the dreaded Comancheros. No disaster lasts long for Francis, though. Grimes, his savior from the first book, suddenly appears out of nowhere and saves him again with the same plot device. (Hey, it worked the first time.) Readers leave Francis and the two orphans hiding from their vengeful pursuers. What happens then? Wait for the next book. Chapters consist of three or four short pages with cliffhanger endings. Characters and scenes change almost from page to page. People are introduced with a line or two of explanation only to disappear a few paragraphs later. As a result, character development is necessarily sacrificed and stereotypes abound. Many readers will love these books for their exciting, nonstop action. Classroom use for social studies, however, would require careful and critical analysis by teachers and students.Ruth Semrau, formerly at Lovejoy School, Allen, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Another entry in the ongoing saga of young Francis Tucket (Call Me Francis Tucket, 1995, etc.) and his adventures after being separated from his parents' wagon train. He is still saddled with two young children he rescued after their parents died of cholera. Francis protects a Mexican woman from an attack by an American soldier, nearly gets hung by the soldier's commander, and is captured by the brutal Comancheros during the war between the US and Mexico. Like its predecessors, this novel wanders all over the map, but it's nicely crammed with nonstop adventure. The serialized publication, sheer number of Dickensian coincidences, characters, and incidents, as well as the innocence of the main character, makes this read like Nicholas Nickleby, set in in the Old West. Still, Paulsen proves himself nothing if not reliable--the pacing is flawless, the prose seemingly effortless, and the pages just fly by. (Fiction. 10+)
Excerpts
Excerpts
Francis Tucket lay on the ridge and watched the adobe hut a hundred yards away and slightly below him. He had his rifle resting on a hump of dirt, the sights unmoving, pointed at the doorway to the hut. "Are we really going to stay here forever? I mean it's really cold. I've been cold before but not like this." A small girl and boy stood ten yards to his rear with the horse and mule, all hidden below the level of the ridge. "It just seems that since you haven't seen anything, we could go down there and get warm. There might be a stove..." "Please be quiet, Lottie." Francis turned and held his hand out. "Now. We're going to wait. I heard something somewhere down there that sounded like a scream. We're going to wait and watch. Be quiet." There was a horse in front of the hut, tied to a half-broken hitch rail. Some chickens walked around the sides pecking at the dirt. There was no dog. Three goats were tied to stakes in back of the house. The horse had a familiar saddle on its back--military cut with the bedroll in front. The horse didn't look wet, so it hadn't worked hard getting here. Then, too, Lottie was right--it was cold, so the horse wouldn't show much sweat. All this went into Francis's eyes and registered in his thoughts automatically--along with the direction of the wind, the fact that a coyote was off to the side a couple of hundred yards away eyeing the 1 chickens, and a hawk was circling over the yard doing the same thing. All of it in and filed away. There. A scream--short but high. Not a man. Maybe a child or a woman. Well. That was all Francis thought: Well. If it was somebody needing help, he was in a bad place to give it. One fifteen-year-old boy, a young girl and a boy with him, a horse and a mule and one rifle. Still. He couldn't stay and not help. It's what he got for not going west, he thought--for not taking the two children and just heading out along the Oregon Trail to find his parents and the wagon train he had been kidnapped from almost two years ago. He and the children had made a good start west, then had gotten sidetracked as they crossed the prairie, and before he knew it an early fall had caught them short of the mountains. Snow had filled all the passes. Somebody at a trading post on the trail had said that there was a southern route down in Mexico that stayed open all year, so Francis had started south. They couldn't hope to winter in the northern prairies. He hadn't realized that taking on Lottie and her little brother, Billy, would slow him down so. He had found them, alone on the prairie, after their father had died of cholera. It had grown warmer as they had moved south along the mountains. Still cold at night, but they had picked up some wool blankets at the trading post, and Lottie had sewn pullover coats for all of them as they moved down into the territory belonging to Mexico. There. He heard a thump, then a scream. "You two stay here," he called softly to Lottie. "And I mean stay here. I'll be back." He slid to the left where there was a thin brush line and followed it down to the hut. The building did not have a window, which was good, because the brush line was sparse scrub oak and the goats had long before stripped away the leaves. Now Francis was barely concealed, and ran quickly, trying to keep his moccasins quiet. He held himself still at the side of the hut, listening. Again, a muffled sound. He checked the cap on his rifle, cocked it, and moved to the side of the door. He was five feet from the door when he noted that the saddle on the horse had a large us stamped on the sides, and the horse had the same brand on its shoulder. It was a United States Cavalry mount. Half a question formed in his mind--what was a United States Cavalry mount doing in Mexican territory?--when the door blew open and a young woman ran out, a large man behind her. He grabbed her shoulders. "Get back in here!" Half a second: Her eyes were wide with terror; she had a scuff on her face where she'd been hit. The man's blue uniform shirt was ripped. He had a bloody scratch on his cheek. He was wearing a military belt with a flap-covered holster, and he saw Francis, threw the woman aside, and clawed at the holster. "Wait...," Francis got out, then saw the flap of the holster come up, the hand catch the butt of the revolver, the barrel swing toward him as the man cocked it, an explosion of smoke and noise. Francis felt the ball cut his cheek and burn past and he shot from the hip. His rifle recoiled in his hands and he saw the ball strike the man high in the chest. He saw everything: a little puff of dust from the blue shirt as the ball hit; no blood, but dust, and then the man went backward and down to a sitting position. He looked up at Francis and said, "You've killed me," and settled on his back slowly and died. All in three seconds. Francis stood in silent horror. He felt the sun on his back, the terrified woman standing in front of him, the goats bleating nearby, the smoke from the shots drifting off to the side. He stood there and knew that nothing would ever be the same again. He had killed a man. Excerpted from Tucket's Ride by Gary Paulsen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.