Cowboy Ghost

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
At the Spur Box, a cattle ranch deep in the heart of Florida's wilderness, they celebrate a boy's 16th birthday in an interesting way. It's called "initiation" and involves the birthday boy, a rough and whiskered old rope, and a wild stallion — powerful and untamed — who'd rather break a boy into hundreds of pieces than be taken by a rope.

If Tee tames the shuddering, snorting beast in front of him with just the prickly expanse of jute and his own blind guts, the crowd of ranch hands will whoop and holler and celebrate Tee's first step into manhood. If he doesn't, not only will Tee risk having the weathered ranchers snicker at him the rest of his life; the horse might end Tee's life. So, you see, there's a lot riding on this moment, and it's not just the horse that Tee has to win over. In fact, even before Tee can convince the horse that Tee is in charge, he must convince himself that this is so.

Welcome to the first energy-soaked pages of Robert Newton Peck's brilliant new novel, Cowboy Ghost. After authoring 60 books for teens and young people, including the triumphant (but quiet) A Day No Pigs Would Die and its companion, A Part of the Sky, Peck is no stranger to teens. However, despite the praise that Pigs and Sky have garnered over the years, for their richly textured, carefully unraveled portraits of an Amish boy's coming-of-age, Peck has been criticized (by some, not by me!) for moving his novels at an Amish pace — too slow for most teens.

Without a doubt, Cowboy Ghost will startle the critics who thought Peckneverhad any gumption and cause the rest of us to whoop and holler in his general direction. CowboyGhost is a breathless cattle drive through the wilderness of manhood — complete with hostile (but considerate) Indians, cow thieves, violent electric storms, stampedes, a wickedly smart chuck-wagon cook called Tin Pan, and some difficult but heartwarming surprises. Tee is there, riding the rear and inhaling dirt and cow dust, becoming a man before our very eyes.

What makes Cowboy Ghost so very special is that Peck allows us to watch Tee become not just any man but only one man — Titus Timothy MacRobertson, son of Rob Roy and brother of Micah. These family relationships, fraught with profound misunderstandings, also reveal a tenderness that could stir even the most gnarled rancher. At every turn, Peck helps readers poke through stereotypes and even the calcified habits we employ when communicating with people we love. What rests underneath the personality we share with the rest of the world? What powerful secrets do we hide even from ourselves?

Peck, perhaps, has come of age as an author, too. What's here is the exquisite richness of language we've come to expect from him after A Day No Pigs Would Die and other books. In one tight passage Peck describes the very derriere of a cattle drive: "The job, I soon appreciated, is the absolute worst position to work at while pushing beef. The read end of misery. Ranching's rectum. In rain, you're riding into a shower of everyone else's splattering mud. Under sunshine, when the earth's dry, two thousand hoofs are filling the atmosphere with grit. Half of it falls to the ground. The rest we inhale..."

Yet readers of Cowboy Ghost will find their hearts in their throats from the second chapter on to the end.

As Tee himself does, Peck learns not to dally in observations anymore — no matter how keen. The goal for a man (or an author, perhaps) is to observe and then act rightly, swiftly, with passion and compassion. Tee learns these lessons and becomes a man. Peck finally tames the wild stallion that is his gift for prose and rides that lovely beast of a creature right into our hearts. Yip! Yip! Yahoo!

—Cathy Young is the founder of www.read-this.com, which specializes in creating web sites for authors, illustrators, and publishers.

Children's Book Review Service

A real page-turner!

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Mighty flavorsome language just about disguises a predictable plot in this cowboy tale about the youngest son of a domineering Florida rancher who reaches manhood during an arduous cattle drive. Titus, 16, makes an energetic narrator, speaking in a 1920's ranchhand slang that is sometimes punctuated with off-color humor: "[Riding drag], I soon appreciated, is the absolute worst position to work at while pushing beef. The rear end of misery. Ranching's rectum." Unable to relate to his bitter, hyper-masculine widower father, Titus idolizes his ill-fated older brother, Micah. He also hears occasional words of wisdom from the ghost of the title, an undeveloped guardian angel figure who appears for the first time as some strange noises in the barn late at night, but within two or three days becomes "my old Cowboy Ghost." The characters are stock: a right feisty, devoted housekeeper "who sometimes had a temper that could spit upwind and bust a window"; a Chinese cook named Pan Tin (but called Tin Pan by the cowpokes), who "cooked tasty and smiled frequent"; a foreman who reminds ignorant newcomers that "it ain't a fault or a weakness to git born a yeller Chinaman. Or be a black." Not in the same league as Peck's A Day No Pigs Would Die or his Soup books, this novel nonetheless capably tours readers through a favorite fictional venue. Ages 12-up.

Children's Literature - Stacey Evers

A young man comes of age during a disastrous cattle drive that includes a stampede, an attack by Indians and the death of his older brother, Micah. Skinny Titus Timothy MacRobertson has grown up on Spur Box ranch in Florida without a mother and with an aloof and macho father who sees him only in the shadow of his brawny brother. Never one to skip a chance to prove himself, "Tee" jumps at the chance to accompany Micah and the ranch's cowhands over several hundred miles to deliver their cows to the stockyards in Homestead in south Florida. After Micah dies, Tee takes over the reins, making sure that the cattle get to Homestead, haggling over the sale price of the herd, and rewarding the crew for sticking with him. Upon his return to Spur Box, Titus confronts his father and establishes a new tone for their relationship. Peck's witty, thoughtful writing captures the tone and tenor of the early twentieth century without bogging down the story in extraneous detail.

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's May 1999 review of the hardcover edition: This novel is about a cattle ranch in Florida in the 1920s, about a father and his sons. The ghost in the title is a bit misleading, because this is not a ghost story—the ghost that occasionally speaks to Otis (Tee) is revealed to be Tee himself as a grownup. Because Tee's mother died giving birth to him, Tee thinks his father doesn't acknowledge him much because he's angry that Tee caused the death of his beloved wife. Tee's much older, stronger brother Micah stands in most times as the parent Tee needs. Most of the action of this story takes place when Tee at 16 goes on his first cattle drive, with Micah in charge. During this coming-of-age trial, Tee shows himself and his world that he is capable of being a leader, of taking responsibility, of being a man. Peck's style is unique, as you know from his prize-winning A Day No Pigs Would Die. Sometimes it is close to poetry. Sometimes his style is earthy and direct: "tighter than a bull's ass in fly time." Sometimes the dialogue is nearly obscure, I presume in the Florida cowboy tradition. The huge emotional scenes are tempered by stoical reticence, which makes them all the more powerful. Still, Peck won't get through to every reader. Librarians will need to introduce the story and sell it to potential readers. KLIATT Codes: J—Recommended for junior high school students. 1999, HarperTrophy, 202p, 18cm, 98-34915, $4.95. Ages 13 to 15. Reviewer: Claire Rosser; July 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 4)

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9-This is the story of 16-year-old Titus MacRobertson's growth into manhood during a cattle drive in early 20th-century Florida. Along the way, the boy and his cow-puncher mates struggle against attacks by Seminole Indians and cattle thieves, horrendous weather, and the difficult conditions and hard work required to drive 500 steer several hundred miles through the wilderness. Readers will be entertained by the way Peck portrays the cowboy lifestyle, including his liberal use of folksy, country jargon. There is plenty of action, but the novel also has its sensitive side as when Titus deals with his older brother's death and learns of the darker side of his family and its lasting effects. The teen's transformation from cook's helper to leader of the cattle drive might be a little too abrupt, but it does not significantly detract from a good story.-William C. Schadt, Glacier Park Middle School, Maple Valley, WA

Kirkus Reviews

A disastrous cattle drive turns a boy into a man in this ripsnorter, set in Florida where, Peck (Soup Ahoy, 1994, etc.) avers, "the American cowboy originated."