The Ghosts of Luckless Gulch - Hardcover

Isaacs, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416902015 ISBN 13: 9781416902010

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2008

Synopsis

Meet Estrella. She can run so fast that she burns up the air, leaving trails of flames wherever she goes.

Her pets -- a Kickle Snifter, a Sidehill Wowser, and a Rubberado puppy -- are as untamed as California, and the pride and love of Estrella's heart.

When the greedy ghosts of old gold miners steal her pets, Estrella will need every bit of her pluck and nimble-footedness to rescue them from the ghosts of Luckless Gulch.

From the author of Swamp Angel and the artist who created The Replacements comes a tale as unpredictable as the California Gold Rush, as tall as a Redwood tree, and as surprising as a skunk selling perfume. Pull a chair up to the wood stove and get ready to laugh!

About this title

About the Author:

Dan Santat is the Caldecott Medal–winning and New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend, as well as the illustrator of many other picture books, including Crankenstein by Samantha Berger. Dan lives in Southern California with his wife, two kids, and various pets.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 2–5—Isaacs, who cleverly conjured up a fearless Tennessee woodswoman in Swamp Angel (Dutton, 1994), once again devises a tale of exaggeration and slapstick. The heroine this time is Estrella, a lightning-fast runner who is also a natural-born animal healer. She cares for three outlandish creatures: Kickle Snifter, a strong-as-an-elephant lamb; Sidehill Wowser, a horse look-alike with downhill legs twice the length of its uphill ones; and Comet, a bouncing Rubberado puppy. Incensed when they are stolen, Estrella tracks them north to California Gold Rush country, where an old miner, after sharing a tall tale or two, sends her on to Luckless Gulch. There, she discovers that treacherous ghosts have petrified everything in ice and are viciously using her pets to mine their gold. In a blast of ingenuity, Estrella races around the underground chamber "lighting the room with brilliant streaks of flame," ultimately scaring off the ghosts and saving her critters and the miners. A few too many plot strands crowd the text-heavy story, possibly confounding less-than-able readers. Nevertheless, the laugh-filled distortions on every page keep pace with this feisty heroine's laudable determination to make things right. Although at times Santat's images struggle with the text for space on the page, the illustrations, rendered in acrylic and ink and touched up in Adobe Photoshop, capture the story's spirit, and the ghosts are particularly, and delightfully, ghoulish.—Barbara Elleman, Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA
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About this edition

• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1416902015
• ISBN 13: 9781416902010
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Santat Dan