Product Description

Eleven-year-old Sallie March is a whip-smart tomboy and voracious reader of Western adventure novels. When she and her sister, Maude, are orphaned for the second time, they decide to escape their new self-serving guardians for the wilds of the frontier and an adventure the likes of which Sallie has only read about. This time, however, the wanted woman isn’t a villain out of a dime novel–it’s Sallie’s very own sister!
Narrated by the irrepressible Sallie, what follows is the rollicking story of what really happened out there on the range. Not the lies the papers printed, but the honest-to-goodness truth of how things went from bad to worse and how two very different sisters went from being orphans to being outlaws–and lived to tell the tale! Bursting with memorable characters, fast-paced action, and laugh-out-loud moments, this is Newbery Honor winner Audrey Couloumbis’s most unforgettable work yet.


From the Hardcover Library Binding edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #302006 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-27
• Released on: 2005-09-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 5-8–Sallie March, 11, devotee of dime novels, narrates this rollicking Wild West adventure. The irrepressible tomboy and her ladylike older sister, Maude, have been living in Cedar Rapids with their stern Aunt Ruthie since their parents died. When she is shot dead by a random bullet, Reverend Peasley takes the girls in, but works them like servants. Then grandfatherly Mr. Wilburn proposes to Maude, and it's the last straw. The sisters take two horses and head to Independence, MO, in hopes of finding their uncle. They disguise themselves as boys and begin to live as dime-novel heroes, hooking up with Marion Hardly, aka Joe Harden (the Joe Harden, of the dimer series?), who is also their aunt's killer. Although the girls' intentions are never bad, they end up in the midst of a bank robbery and committing murder. The newspapers are full of news of Mad Maude March, gone crazy with grief. All ends well as they make it to Missouri, where everyone has a reputation anyway. Sallie's narration is delightful, with understatements that are laugh-out-loud hilarious. While this novel at first seems a departure for Couloumbis, there are many similarities to Getting Near to Baby (1999) and Say Yes (2002, both Putnam). Her strong females are memorable, largely due to her perfect pitch in conveying their unique voices. Hard to put down, and a fun read-aloud.–Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
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About the Author
Audrey Couloumbis was born in Illinois. Her first book for children, Getting Near to Baby, won the Newbery Honor in 2000. Couloumbis is also the author of Say Yes (2002), an IRA Children’s Honor Book and a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Award winner. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a housekeeper, a sweater designer, and a school custodian. Today she lives in upstate New York and Florida with her husband, Akilla, and their dog, Phoebe. They have two grown children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE

The heat was awful.

The breeze, when we got one, felt like it came out of an oven. Aunt Ruthie hoped to take our minds off
our misery by taking us to town. Even in the dim cool of the mercantile, sweat made our clothing cling to
our skin.

My dress was the worst, made out of some kind of muslin that got itchy once it stuck to me. Every two
minutes, Aunt Ruthie would say, "Stop scratching, Sallie, it isn't polite."

The shooting didn't start until we'd stepped outside of the mercantile. The screen door whacked shut
behind us, and we were greeted by a volley of shots. It was stunning really. Then it was scary. The noise
was too great to take it all in at once.

It's strange the way time stretched in that moment and seemed to go on forever. The entire morning
passed through my mind, starting when my older sister Maude ate my biscuit with jelly that I had left over
from breakfast.

When I complained there were no more biscuits, and that was the last of the black currant jelly, she said,
"If you wanted it, you shouldn't have left it laying around." So while Aunt Ruthie said it was the heat, I
knew it was that biscuit that had me squabbling with Maude all day.

As we neared the barber shop, walking to town, Maude pulled Aunt Ruthie toward a stone bench, saying,
"You're tiring yourself. Come sit down for a minute," and I dragged on Aunt Ruthie's other arm, saying, "It
gets too hot to sit on that rock in the sun. Let's go someplace cooler."

Aunt Ruthie said, "I've had enough of being pulled apart."

In the mercantile, she showed her teeth at us and whispered, "You are to keep your distance, both of
you. I don't care to listen to you bicker for another minute." We promised to be good. To this, she said,
"Stay over there by the farm goods."

In these aisles, there were only smelly jars of lanolin and herbal salves to examine, and such things as
curative oils for ear mites and wireworm to avoid, having nasty little pictures of the ills on the side of the
bottles. This bothered me so bad that I pulled a dimer out of my pocket and set to reading it instead.

But Aunt Ruthie was right in sending us there. It was not two minutes before Maude started up again.
She told me that Joe Harden Frontier Fighter, was never a real man. "Those books weren't meant for girls
to read, either," she said.

"How would you know?" I said to her. Maude didn't like for me to read dime novels. Sad to say, Maude
thought dimers were a waste of learning how to read.

"It's just a made-up name for made-up stories out of books," she said. "Boys probably look up to him, but
Joe Harden is just a story figure."

"Like David?" I asked her.

"David who?"

"David who slew Goliath. Is he made up?"

"Of course not, Sallie," Maude said. "What a terrible thing to say. Don't you let Aunt Ruthie hear you talk
like that."

I didn't think Aunt Ruthie would care all that much. She hardly ever cared about anything but whether the
work was done right. Maude was the one who cared about such things.

Maude and me were orphaned when our folks took sick with the fever. Aunt Ruthie had already started
out from Philadelphia to come live with us and teach school. By the time she got to Cedar Rapids, Aunt
Ruthie had to take us in. Or rather, we took her in, and she took care of us.

I'm forgetting Uncle Arlen. He was Aunt Ruthie's, and Momma's, younger brother, but he had gone west
not long after our folks died, and we had not heard from him in years. So he didn't count as kin. Aunt
Ruthie herself said he was as good as dead to us.

She felt he ought to have stayed around to help her raise us, I guess. Around the middle of winter, she
felt he ought to have stayed around to chop wood; that was when I heard his name mentioned most
often. Aunt Ruthie could hold a grudge second to none.

"David's out of a book," I said stubbornly, "and I ain't never seen any giants."

"That's because he killed them all," Maude told me. "You have to stop reading those cheap stories. Your
grammar is atrocious."

"You ever seen any Indians?" I asked her.

"Not around here," Maude said.

"That's because Joe Harden, Frontier Fighter, cleared them all out. Single-handed." That's what I said. But
down deep, I believed Maude.

"Single-handedly," she said. Maude had in the past year begun to help Aunt Ruthie in the classroom, and
she had become quite a stickler. "Kansas is a frontier, Sallie. Iowa is civilized."

"It didn't used to be," I said, but only because it grated on me sometimes that Maude knew just about
everything.

Everything except what I had learned from those dime novels. I just knew that if I ever had to survive off
the land the way the frontier fighters did, if I had to kill a bear or outsmart a wily Indian, I'd be better able
to do it than my sister.

"Ask Aunt Ruthie about Joe Harden then," Maude said as Aunt Ruthie came our way, carrying her
purchases, wrapped in brown paper that nearly matched her dress.

We'd been orphans for six years. In that time, given the choice between Maude's answers and Aunt
Ruthie's, when mulling over the knobbly questions of life, I'd found Maude's to be more to the point.

Maude said, "Go ahead, ask."

"Don't you dare ask me anything." Aunt Ruthie strode right on past us. "Some days it isn't even a good
idea to get out of bed," she muttered as we left the mercantile.

Customer Reviews

Heading into the sunset
If Louis L'Amour were still alive and if he wrote books for girls, this is perhaps what he'd come up with. It's full of authentic detail, rip-roaring action, personable young heroines, with an enduring respect for books, words, learning and reading. While not quite a Western (it's all East of Independence, MO) it has the elements western-lovers will savor: fast horses, harsh weather, snakes that won't die, sharp-shootin' gals, spunky dialogue, and a "git r done" attitude and an ethically satisfying ending. A great readaloud for middle school, and boys will love it as much as girls. It's like Lemony Snicket on horseback!

Sure to Appeal to Adventure Seeking Girls! Don't miss it!
Much like the "dimer novels" Sallie enjoys reading in this novel, "The Misadventures of Maude March" gets off to a rollicking start and continues at this fast and furious pace. Bank robberies, mountain lions, ornery mules, shooting, snake attacks, outlaw gangs--it is full of everything a reader could want. When Sallie and Maude are orphaned by the stray bullet from a dimer hero Joe Harden, they are sent to live with the preacher who sees them as potential maids. Anxious to marry off Maude, the sisters decide to escape in search of long lost Uncle Arlen. Stealing two horses and disguised as boys, they fall into one wild escapade after another. Interspersed are highly exaggerated newspaper articles about Maude's escapades. With its fast action, humor, fully developed and strong heroines, it is a perfect novel to suggest to those readers looking for more than a girl wants boy, chases boy, falls in love type novel.
A great read aloud as well, and one that has enough excitement to appeal to male listeners. A thoroughly enjoyable book, worth 5+ stars!

Awesome!!!!
This book is a fast paced thriller set up in the old west. When I opened the book and saw the lining that looked like an old newspaper I knew it was gonna be good. Maude is the down to earth sister while all Sally wants is an adventure. This "dimer" is one book I would recommend to anyone! I'd give it 6 stars and I plan on reading it a second time!