Much Ado About Grubstake
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Overview
Grubstake is a grubby down-on-its-luck mining town filled with grubby down-on-their-luck miners. So when a decidedly nongrubby city slicker shows up and offers to buy the tapped-out mines, the miners are sorely tempted. But not Arley, the brash sixteen-year-old girl who runs the boardinghouse. No, Arley smells a rat. What could some fancy-britches rascal want with empty mines? Is there more in those desolate pits than the Grubs realize? Like Jean Ferris’s popular Once Upon a Marigold, this lighthearted, endearingly goofy story is packed with quirky, lovable characters and piercing insights.
Synopsis
Plucky Arley and a cast of offbeat characters save their Wild West town from certain ruin.
Publishers Weekly
Written in the same spirit as Audrey Couloumbus's The Misadventures of Maude March, Ferris's (Once Upon a Marigold) comical Wild West adventure introduces a group of wittily portrayed characters, all of whom live in Grubstake, a mining town that has seen better days. Orphaned at age 14, Arley Pickett, the owner of a boarding house, longs for the kind of excitement she finds in her "Penny Dreadful" novels. Then one day a mysterious city slicker presents Grubstake's citizens with "an offer no sane person would refuse." For reasons unknown, the stranger wants to buy all the town's mines, which have been closed for years. While some "Grubs" are eager to sell and move on, others, like 16-year-old Arley, are suspicious of the buyer's motives. Trying to get to the bottom of things, the teen finds herself in the middle of an adventure every bit as eventful as one in her Penny Dreadfuls, and manages to find romance as well as danger along the way. Readers will embrace the feisty heroine along with her quirky, down-and-out boarders and an assortment of colorful neighbors: Everdene Hannigan, the tavern owner, who "was opposed to men, at least in a romantic way"; newspaper editor Duncan McKenzie, who "knew all the big words in the dictionary, and used them every day"; and Wing Lee, the town baker, who is as good at giving advice as he is at making bread. Ages 10-up. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Written in the same spirit as Audrey Couloumbus's The Misadventures of Maude March, Ferris's (Once Upon a Marigold) comical Wild West adventure introduces a group of wittily portrayed characters, all of whom live in Grubstake, a mining town that has seen better days. Orphaned at age 14, Arley Pickett, the owner of a boarding house, longs for the kind of excitement she finds in her "Penny Dreadful" novels. Then one day a mysterious city slicker presents Grubstake's citizens with "an offer no sane person would refuse." For reasons unknown, the stranger wants to buy all the town's mines, which have been closed for years. While some "Grubs" are eager to sell and move on, others, like 16-year-old Arley, are suspicious of the buyer's motives. Trying to get to the bottom of things, the teen finds herself in the middle of an adventure every bit as eventful as one in her Penny Dreadfuls, and manages to find romance as well as danger along the way. Readers will embrace the feisty heroine along with her quirky, down-and-out boarders and an assortment of colorful neighbors: Everdene Hannigan, the tavern owner, who "was opposed to men, at least in a romantic way"; newspaper editor Duncan McKenzie, who "knew all the big words in the dictionary, and used them every day"; and Wing Lee, the town baker, who is as good at giving advice as he is at making bread. Ages 10-up. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.VOYA
In this funny, romantic, 1888 western mystery, Arley, a sixteen-year-old, self-supporting orphan, discovers a plot to dupe the already dying town of Grubstake, Colorado, defeats the swindlers, falls in love, and strikes it rich. Arley mothers a group of dysfunctional miners who stay in her boarding house, and she lives out her own fantasies through Penny Dreadfuls-romantic, happy ending, adventure novels. Arley suspects that two strangers, trying to buy up the mines, have discovered valuable ore. While organizing her boarders, the Chinese baker, the sixteen-year-old editor of the paper, and the saloon staff to foil the swindlers' plot, she is attracted to the orphaned geologist working for the absentee land grabber. The geologist, inspired by his reciprocal affection for Arley, quits his job and finds paydirt in the mine Arley's father left her, a vein that runs throughout area. With her new wealth, Arley saves the town, establishes a home for the geologist's fellow orphans, hires the geologist as her manager, and plans to see the world. As in Love Among the Walnuts (Harcourt, 1998/VOYA February 1999) and Once Upon a Marigold (Harcourt, 2002/VOYA December 2002), Ferris combines adventure, love, and off-the-wall characters in a page-turning story full of good laughs and common sense messages. Middle and junior high readers, especially girls, will love it. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2006, Harcourt, 272p., $17. Ages 11 to 15.—Lucy Schall