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Book Review: Riding freedom by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Title & Author:Riding freedom by Pam Muñoz Ryan; drawings by Brian Selznick. Scholastic, 1998

Length:138 pages; drawings every 10-12 pages.

Print size: Larger than 'adult' books but not childish.

Other readability issues: This story is told in the third person and is set inthe mid 1800's. It is an excellent choice for horse lovers, girls, and to accompany history lessons about the gold rush or the women's suffrage movement.

Summary: Charlotte Parkhurst was a top-notch horse rider and "the first woman to vote in the state of California and probably the United States." Pam Muñoz Ryan built a story around the facts known about "Six-Horse Charlie," from her early life in an orphanage to driving stagecoaches in the gold rush era.

Typical words: Here are some typical words from the stories; it would be wise to see how many of these your students can read before expecting them to read independently.