Tough Luck

Dallas (Little Souls) serves up a lively if simplistic tale of a spirited 14-year-old girl’s journey by wagon train across the American West in 1863. After Haidie Richards’s mother dies, her conniving older brother sells the family farm in Illinois and puts her in an orphanage, their father having left years earlier in the gold rush and dropped out of contact. Desperate to find her father and set things right, Haidie escapes the orphanage and disguises herself as a boy to win a job on a mule team. On the way west, she faces dangers typical to the genre, including bandits who steal a mule and an attack on horseback by a band of “savages.” She also meets such colorful characters as a good-hearted gambler and a preacher’s wife who was forced into prostitution. After Haidie reaches Denver and discovers her father’s fate, she sets into motion a plan to redeem her family. Haidie, a self-confessed liar and sharp judge of character, is an entertaining narrator, and Dallas keeps the story moving at a brisk trot. Readers looking for an old-fashioned western will be satisfied. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller, Browne and Miller. (Apr.)