Dude Ranch (Saddle Club Series #6) by Bonnie Bryant

Product Details

Synopsis

The founders of The Saddle Club -- Stevie Lake,  Carole Hanson, and Lisa Atwood -- gear up for the  adventure of their lives when their friend Kate Devine  invites them to her family's dude ranch. They will  have a whole week of cowboy-style riding, plus the  fun of making Kate a club  member.



But when they arrive, the girls soon realize  there's more to the West than Hollywood shootout and  colorful costumes. To show a cowhand that they're  not just "dumb dudes," they pitch in with  chores and help on a cattle roundup, where Stevie  has a run-in with a dangerous rattlesnake. Another  sour note for Stevie: Her birthday is coming up,  and no one seems to care. Little does she know that  her Saddle Club buddies have a top-secret surprise  in the works for her!

Annotation

Carole, Stevie, and Lisa make new friends and have a variety of adventures when they visit Kate on her family's dude ranch near the Rocky Mountains.

Children's Literature

What happens when three Eastern riders travel west? Stevie, Lisa, and Carole are about to find out. The Saddle Club has been invited to spend a week at the working ranch of their friend Kate Devine. It turns out to be the trip of a lifetime, complete with Native Americans, roundups, cute ranch hands, and surprise parties. The story centers on Stevie who is away from home on her birthday for the first time and is positive that her friends have forgotten the date. Early one morning she sees a mysterious figure outside and thinks it may be an Indian. The next night the girls wait up and meet Christine, a young woman from a local tribe. Stevie begins to realize the Indians are not like the ones she reads about in Westerns. For readers who are riders or who love horses, this is a good book; they will enjoy the way the story weaves riding terms into the plot. However, without previous riding experience, this book may fall flat. If you do not know what posting and tack are, you may find sections rather boring. Lucky for the girls of The Saddle Club, lots of girls love horses. Reviewer: Heather Robertson Mason

Biography

Bonnie Bryant is the author of nearly a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, Saddle Club Super Editions, and the Pony Tales series. She began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies and found herself learning right along with her characters. Though she claims that Stevie, Carole and Lisa are all much better riders than she is.