Product Description

It's her mother's crazy idea: a trip to Texas to save the buffalo. Amanda Guthridge just wants to ride horses with her boyfriend Philip and plan her coming-out party.

But suddenly they're facing alligators, rattlesnakes, and stampeding buffalo on the Texas-Oklahoma frontier with David Talltree, the half-Comanche cowboy who thinks she can't even ride!

So she challenges him to a horse race, no-holds-bared. He's handsome, arrogant, and much too self-assured -- and she's determined to won. She expects adventure. But she hasn't planned on danger -- or romance...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #825983 in Books
• Published on: 1993-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In 1904, 15-year-old Amanda Guthridge leaves the comforts of San Francisco to accompany her mother on the difficult trek to Texas. The girl is unhappy about the trip, the purpose of which is to locate and corral a herd of buffalo. Determined to help save these animals from extinction, Mrs. Guthridge enlists several men to serve as guides during this often perilous mission. The skilled, handsome leader of the group is a half-Comanche teenager, David Talltree, who dismisses Amanda as a "spoiled brat." Furious, she's bent on proving him wrong, and in doing so transforms their combative relationship into a romantic one. Wallace ( A Dog Called Kitty ; Beauty ) colorfully depicts the trials along the trail: dodging an alligator, a rattlesnake, a thunderous hailstorm, a ferocious buffalo. Some elements are farfetched--the seemingly unacademic David, for example, is suddenly accepted to Harvard Law School; Amanda is consumed with ill will ("I hated my family") but with unusual rapidity becomes spirited and warm-hearted. Yet her story may well garner the interest of those who enjoy historical fiction. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 7-10-- Amanda Guthridge is the daughter of wealthy parents who are prominent members of the American Bison Society in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. When her strong-willed mother decides that she will participate in the rescue of a dwindling herd of buffalo in Texas, Amanda is forced to leave her comfortable social circle to accompany her. There she is both attracted to and repelled by David Talltree, a half-Comanche boy who is to guide them on the rescue and who treats her with contempt. She gains his grudging respect when she nearly beats him in a horse race; in the classic manner of romantic westerns, that respects turns to love. Readers who have enjoyed Theodore Taylor's Walking Up a Rainbow (Dell, 1988) and Patricia Beatty's novels for older readers will appreciate the informal language, stock characters (feisty heroine, arrogant hero who has a change of heart, fatherly camp cook, etc.), and standard genre suspense (encounters with rattlesnakes, riding out the treacherous thunderstorm, and near tragedy in a buffalo stampede, etc.) in this fast-paced novel. This is a fictionalized image of the West with realistic trappings--it is highly unlikely that greenhorns, particularly women alone, would have received the polite treatment given the Guthridges--or even been allowed to participate in such an event. However, the book will be enjoyed by young romantics, and may provoke discussions of the role women played in the settlement of the West as well as of the accuracy of Wallace's portrait of them. --Barbara Chatton, College of Education, Univ . of Wyoming, Laramie
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher
It's her mother's crazy idea: a trip to Texas to save the buffalo. Amanda Guthridge just wants to ride horses with her boyfriend Philip and plan her coming-out party.

But suddenly they're facing alligators, rattlesnakes, and stampeding buffalo on the Texas-Oklahoma frontier with David Talltree, the half-Comanche cowboy who thinks she can't even ride!

So she challenges him to a horse race, no-holds-bared. He's handsome, arrogant, and much too self-assured -- and she's determined to won. She expects adventure. But she hasn't planned on danger -- or romance...

Customer Reviews

Mr. Wallace, write a sequel!!!
Even though i am now in my late teens I still go back and read this book- and love it more each time!!! This is without a doubt one of the best books i have ever read and it ranks up there with my other favorite books of all time. I just fall in love with David Talltree more and more deeply whenever I go back to reread this great book. The romance between David and Amanda is so sweet and exciting! Other reviewers are right, there definetely needs to be a sequel to this book!! Even though it ends with no cliff hangers, there still needs to be one! Bill Wallace, if you ever read this, you need to realize that you can and must write a sequel to this book. You should write it for teens though and not for children (I think it would make the drama more realistic)! You know, I used to think that male writers just couldn't write romance, but I was so wrong. David and Amandas relationship is intense and real. But I need to Know what happens when Amanda goes back to California and David goes off to school? Do they still get married, do they still have to go through more adventures before they can finally settle down together? I will be forever grateful that one day I went to the bookstore and picked up this book.

A teenage adventure book with a touch of romance
This adventure book has you on the edge of you seat as Amanda, a gutsy city girl, encounters killer storms, deadly gators and snakes, outlaws, and runaway buffalo. You'll also find yourself cheering Amanda on as she races against the aggravating but handsome David. This book transports you to the Wild West where you'll meet lovable characters you'll never forget

fascinating
I was eight when I first grabbed this book in my schools library. 11 years later I'm still wishing to go back and read this book in between my Dragonlance novels. I think that in itself is a testement to how fantastic Buffalo Gal is. Once you've read it, age doesn't matter. It is a classic that stays with you always.