AGES 5-8: Patricia Hruby Powell retells a folktale that she first read in Frances Newcomb’s Navajo Folktales. This lively tale was kept alive by...
Frog Brings Rain
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Western Books & Movies
Thunder Rose
AGES 4-8: Thunder Rose possesses special powers from the day she is born with thunder and lightning coursing through her veins. She is able to put...
There Was a Coyote Who Swallowed a Flea
AGES 4-8: Do you remember the old woman who swallowed a fly? Now imagine that a coyote in the Southwestern desert has a similar gastronomical...
Letters From the Corrugated Castle
AGES 10-14: Fictionalized corres-pondences to and from a girl, Eldora, living in Gold Rush California from 1850-1852 provide the narrative of this...
Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa
AGES 4-8: This darling tale about the importance of friendship, split into four mini-chapters, is a helpful introduction for children beginning to...
Billy the Kid
AGES 9-11: Like his real-life namesake, Billy Bonney is a charming young man with a hair trigger temper and quick reflexes with a .44. But fact and...
What They Got Right
It is a rare day indeed when an author admits, “They were very faithful to my book.” Ron Hansen is one of those happy writers. Hansen tells us five...
The Curse of Idolatry
Jesse James stands on a frozen pond. Through the ice, he can see the carp swimming inches below the surface. He asks his friend if he ever...
The First Films of Samuel Fuller
Sam Fuller made his first movie about a sullen loser, Robert Ford, instead of a two-fisted hero, a singing cowboy or an outlaw. Lucky for Fuller, I...
A Hex Upon You
DC comic hero Jonah Hex is going to hit the big screen in his current Horror-Western incarnation, which means he’ll be fighting demons or zombies or...
Searchers 2.0
Mel (Del Zamora) and Fred (Ed Pansullo) have it in for Fritz Frobisher (Sy Richardson) who they’ve never forgiven for his unkind efforts to make the...
Ford at Fox at Last
I promised you an update on Ford at Fox, and here it is. Fox has packaged 24 of the silents and talkies John Ford directed for Fox, where he worked...