Books With Flair

Life isn't easy for two-year-old gunman Little Britches. Corrupt Boston Detective Goodman and Special Agent Bradley are looking for him, as are the Mafia and the Russian Brotherhood. But nobody's managed to catch him yet, and anyone who tries will face two forty-fives spitting flaming-hot lead.

The protagonist, Mary Emma Moody, widowed mother of six, has taken her family east in 1912 to begin a new life. Her son, Ralph, then thirteen, recalls how the Moodys survive that first bleak winter in a Massachusetts town. Money and prospects are lacking, but not so faith and resourcefulness. "Mother" in Little Britches and Man of the Family, Mary Emma emerges fully as a character in this book, and Ralph, no longer called "Little Britches," comes into his own. The family?s run-ins with authority and with broken furnaces in winter are evocative of a full and warm family life. Mary Emma & Company continues the Moody saga that started in Colorado with Little Britches and runs through Man of the Family and The Home Ranch. All these titles have been reprinted as Bison Books, as has The Fields of Home, in which Ralph leaves the Massachusetts town for his grandfather's farm in Maine.

Ralph Moody was eight years old in 1906 when his family moved from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch. Through his eyes we experience the pleasures and perils of ranching there early in the twentieth century. Auctions and roundups, family picnics, irrigation wars, tornadoes and wind storms give authentic color to Little Britches. So do adventures, wonderfully told, that equip Ralph to take his father's place when it becomes necessary. Little Britches was the literary debut of Ralph Moody, who wrote about the adventures of his family in eight glorious books, all available as Bison Books.

More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA

As Little Britches, in her best attire, starts for the rodeo in town, she is waylaid by several rattlesnakes wanting to do her harm, but with some quick thinking she finds a way to outsmart them all.

Georgie has a favorite pie he could eat all day..Everyday! Now his morning is turned upside down when he learns he's picked berries for his sister's pie! A whole pie - just for her! But--- could it be this yummy desert is really for someone else? Can Mom help him feel better before their visitors arrive? Georgie has a long day to remember when he lets jealousy make him feel so sad and lonely. He's sure to snuggle his way into your heart as he struggles with this BIG problem, in the story-- The Special Pie. Matthew loves to be home. He likes spending time with his Mom and playing with his pet frog .Now everything is about to change. Today he goes to preschool. But--- his Mom will miss him! He doesn't know anyone at school! He feels weird and a little scared. His new backpack is filled with crayons, pencils and paper for school. Wearing new clothes and shoes, Matthew sets off on an exciting adventure, after a great big hug from his Mom! Will this be a fun day or will he NEVER want to go back? Enoy-- A Great Big Hug Too!

Based on the lives of two adolescent girls in the late 19th century who became infatuated with the Western outlaw heroes they had read about in Ned Buntline's stories and left their homes to join them. The outlaws the girls find are the demoralised remnants of the Doolin-Dalton gang, led by the aging Bill Doolin. Annie shames, and inspires the men, to become what she had imagined them to be. The younger sister Jenny finds a father figure in Doolin, who calls her Little Britches. Doolin's efforts to live up to the girls' vision of him lead him to be carted off in a cage to an Oklahoma jail where he waits to be hanged.

The fatherless Moody family moved from Colorado to Medford, Massachusetts, in 1912, when Ralph was entering his teens. "I tried as hard as I could to be a city boy, but I didn't have very good luck," he says at the beginning of The Fields of Home. "Just little things that would have been all right in Colorado were always getting me in trouble." So he is sent to his grandfather's farm in Maine, where he finds a new set of adventures.

Little Britches becomes the "man" in his family after his father's early death, taking on the concomitant responsibilities as well as opportunities. During the summer of his twelfth year he works on a cattle ranch in the shadow of Pike's Peak, earning a dollar a day. Little Britches is tested against seasoned cowboys on the range and in the corral. He drives cattle through a dust storm, eats his weight in flapjacks, and falls in love with a blue outlaw horse. Following Little Britches and developing an episode noted near the end of Man of the Family, The Home Ranch continues the adventures of young Ralph Moody. Soon after returning from the ranch, he and his mother and siblings will go east for a new start, described in Mary Emma & Company and The Fields of Home. All these titles have been reprinted as Bison Books.