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Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

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Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

eBook(NOOK Kids)

$4.99

eBook(NOOK Kids)
$4.99

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Overview

When Widow Tulip Jones of Bore, England, inherits a ranch in By-Golly Gully, Texas, and moves in with two trunks of tea, twelve pet tortoises, and three servants, hilarity ensues. The peaceful life suits the wealthy widow fine until word gets out and every unmarried man in Texas lines up to marry her. Widow Tulip and her small staff of three can't possibly run the farm and manage all the suitors, so she devises a plan—and it just might work. This story filled with giant tortoises, 1,000 brides, bad guys, a smart widow, and even a little romance is sure to get kids laughing.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780375987885
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	02/11/2014
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	48
Lexile:	AD970L (what's this?)
File size:	31 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 9 Years

About the Author

ANNE ISSACS is the author of Swamp Angel, a Caldecott Honor and ALA Notable Book; and its sequel, Dust Devil, which received four starred reviews; the Ghosts of Luckless Gulch, a New York Public Library Best Book; Treehouse Tales, a Junior Library Guild selection; Cat Up a Tree, a New York Public Library Title for Reading and Sharing; Torn Thread, an ALA Notable Book and a National Jewish Book Award finalist; and Pancakes for Supper, winner of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award.

KEVIN HAWKES is the illustrator of Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly, My Little Sister Ate One Hare, Library Lion, Weslandia, and The Road to Oz. He also wrote and illustrated Wicked Big Toddlah.

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Editorial Reviews

★ 11/25/2013
Isaacs (Swamp Angel) teams with Hawkes (The Wicked Big Toddlah) on this Texas humdinger about a wealthy widow and the men vying for her hand. The tall tale opens with a disclaimer (in Texas, “all exaggeration must be restricted to the first twenty-four hours past sunrise”), and an account of how Widow Jones and her three ladies-in-waiting turn her inherited property, By-Golly Ranch, into a desert paradise. “Soon every unmarried man in Texas hoped to marry Tulip Jones—and in 1870, every man in Texas was unmarried.” Widow Jones hires a humble baker, Charlie Doughpuncher, to help her feed the single cowboys who drop by. In pencil-and-acrylic caricatures, Hawkes pictures an unattractive crew of bachelor yokels (leaving the baker as the widow’s obvious choice). Widow Jones’s least appealing beaus are the most persistent: fiendish Sheriff Arroyo, with a live rattlesnake on his hat, and his snaggle-toothed brother Spit. Isaacs’s ability to spin a hyperbolic yarn is as sharp as ever as she chronicles the widow’s schemes to help the lonelyhearts, evade the Arroyo brothers, and round up a criminal gang to boot. Ages 5–9. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 01/01/2014
Gr 1–4—Isaacs excels at writing tall tales, and readers will not be disappointed by her newest yarn. In 1870, the widow Tulip Jones inherits millions of dollars and a ranch, so she moves from England to By-Golly Gully. She quickly learns that everything is bigger in Texas, including her garden vegetables and her beloved pet tortoises. But her blissful peace is disrupted when word gets around about her rich and unmarried status. Hilarity ensues as the widow comes up with a variety of ways to get rid of the 1000 suitors who line up at her door. Exaggeration is the name of the game from text to illustrations. The story is told in a linear, yet compelling way, and the delightful tongue-twisting narration uses a variety of fun and folksy phrases. Isaacs takes her time, humorously setting the scene through the first few pages, which prepares readers to expect larger-than-life problems and solutions. The characters are exaggerated as well, from the odious suitors to the spunky and independent widow Jones, who takes a proactive approach to solving her problems. Hawkes's painterly illustrations, rendered with acrylic and pencil, feature vast blue skies, fluffy white clouds, and sun-drenched landscapes that firmly establish the setting. These exaggerated visuals match the humorous tone set by the text. At its best when read aloud, this story will also appeal to elementary school kids who will be inspired to create their own tales with over-the-top characters.—Amy Seto Musser, Denver Public Library

School Library Journal

★ 2013-12-07
There's nothing like the unexpected arrival of a millionaire widow to spur a stampede of Texas cowboys. In this terrific tall tale from the author of Swamp Angel (1994) and Dust Devil (2010), it looks like just about everyone is the marrying kind when a rich Englishwoman shows up: "Soon every unmarried man in Texas hoped to marry Tulip Jones--and in 1870, every man in Texas was unmarried." One thousand suitors mean thousands of teatime pastries to fix, so Tulip hires Charlie Doughpuncher to help out. Day and night, the kind baker is there to comfort (and feed scones to) her suitored-out self. Desperate for some peace, Tulip finally concocts several challenges to clear out the gold-digging cowboys, from reversing the flow of the Rio Grande to collecting a pail of stars. But when her plan works, she's all alone. Or is she? Lively storytelling in colorful, drawn-out sentences, Texas-style, makes for a splendid--albeit lengthy--read-aloud. Hawkes' extra-charming soft-focus acrylic-and–colored-pencil artwork on textured paper suits the cactus-filled desert landscape to a T-for-Texas, and the caricatured faces of the snaggletoothed, bewhiskered, beyond-scruffy suitors are downright hilarious. True love is no tall tale in this delightfully overblown story of a plucky widow, a herd of greedy cowboys and a Texas summer so hot the chickens lay hard-boiled eggs. (Picture book. 5-8)

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