Wallace and Other New Mexican Ghost Towns

 New Mexico is dotted with ghost towns. 

Some were mining towns that died when the mines either closed or ran out of ore. Dawson, was a coal mining town until the mines shut down in the 1950s. Now all that is left is a haunting cemetery that remembers the 383 men who lost their lives in mine explosions in 1913 and 1923. Lake Valley was a silver mining boomtown and White Oaks was a hub for those who sought to make their fortune in gold. Ancho was a center of brick production, providing most of the bricks San Francisco needed to rebuild after its disastrous 1906 earthquake. 

Others, like Glenrio and Budville, catered to the traffic on old Route 66 and died when I-40 came through. 

Steins, New Mexico

And before the highways came through, there were  railroad towns that blossomed as the rails were being laid, only to whither when the work was done. Steins, Montoya, and Wallace are such towns. 

Wallace was a town on Indian land, along the Galisteo river three miles east of Santo Domingo Pueblo. It was created to be a distributing center for merchandise in the San Pedro mining district, serving Cerillos, Golden, Madrid, Hagan, and many other little sites that are now forgotten.   The first house was built in January 1880. By the end of 1882 there were 600 inhabitants, and the town boasted a Fred Harvey dining room, a post office, hotel, and a school that was in use seven days a week because it served as the dance hall on Saturdays and the church on Sundays. Two years later, the population was over 1,000. In its heyday, the town boasted several general stores, carpenters and blacksmiths, two chinese laundries, a pool hall, and numerous saloons. 

Even from its outset, Wallace was a wide open town known for its drinking, gambling, murder, wild gunfights, and lynchings. One of its most infamous residents was J.H. Conway, also known as Ellis Conway, O.L. Hale. Although he was a wanted man, for murder, forgery, and jail escape, he managed to get himself elected as Wallace's Justice of the Peace. While serving as a judge, he also ran a gambling ring that was known to resort to robbery when they did not win through cards. 

But all good and not so good things must come to an end. Wallace's boom turned to bust soon after the new millenium began. One reason is that Santo Domingo Pueblo was not happy having such a rowdy town occupying its land. The railroad removed its shops and roundhouse, leading to the demise of the boarding house. Many railroad families moved away. By 1906, the town's name was changed to Thornton, perhaps in an attempt to distance itself from its infamous past. In 1932, a new highway was cut between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, bypassing the town, now known as Domingo, by four miles.

We would know almost nothing at all about Wallace if it were not for Father Stanley, a priest who wrote small histories of New Mexico's towns. His book The Wallace (New Mexico) Story was published in October of 1962. By then, the town had become little more than a trading post used by the local Indians and visited by tourists wishing to see an old-time trading post. Stanley hoped that Fred Thompson, the owner of the post, would reconstruct part of the old town and make it into a tourist attraction, but that did not happen.

Today, Wallace is, I believe, completely gone. The site remains on pueblo land and is difficult to get to since Santo Domingo blocked off the old road between Madera and Algodones during the COVID pandemic. Looking at online satellite land maps, the land looks barren. 

Gone, but not completely forgotten. When a copy of Father Stanley's book came into my possession, his story about Judge Conway fired my imagination, and The Winding Road to Wallace, my Western Romance, was born. Although my main characters are purely my invention, Conway is in my book, as are some of the merchants and lawmen that Stanley mentions. A little bit of this ghost town has risen from oblivion to ride again. 

The life and death of Sylvester H. Roper, American Inventor

Firearms are not my specialty. Fortunately, I know people who know things that I don't. 

I relied on Ken Dusenberry back when I was writing Where Duty Calls,  the first book in Rebels Along the Rio Grande, my middle grade trilogy of historical novels set in New Mexico during the Civil War. Ken was an Army veteran, an historical Civil War reenactor, and knew a lot about everything, especially artillery. He was the one who told me, kindly but firmly, that pistols and rifles were not guns. They were firearms. Cannons and howitzers were guns. Unfortunately for me (and for a lot of other people. Ken was well respected and loved in a lot of different communities) Ken passed away before I completed the third book in the series.I still miss Ken and his witty and insightful advice. He made my first two books much better, and may be one reason why the first two were finalists for the Western Writers of America's prestigious spur award and the third was not.

I'm now working on another book set in the old west. The Winding Road to Wallace is an historical
romance set in New Mexico in the 1880s. It is far less fact based than the Rebels series, but I still wanted to avoid anachronisms and artifacts that were out of the time period or just plain wrong. I was lucky enough to have R.G. Yoho look at a very early draft of my manuscript. Bob, as those who know him call him, is from West Virginia and is passionate about the history and tales of the American West.  He's a prolific and award-winning author (I think he's up to 15 titles) and most of his works are Westerns or nonfiction about the west or American history, his latest being Destined to Ride Alone, a young adult novel about an orphan escaping a terrible past. Like me, he's a member of the Western Writers of America.

I can't remember what firearm I had placed in the hands of  Prudence Baker, the leading lady in my story. Prudence knows even less about firearms and guns than I do. In the opening scene, she levels an empty shotgun at a man she perceive to be a threat. It goes without saying that her rash action didn't help her much. Thank goodness for the story, and for Prudence, Bob Yoho let me know that there were better firearms to place in Prudence's hands. 

Bob suggested I give Prudence a Roper revolving shotgun like the one pictured above. This was an early cartridge-firing repeating shotgun and could carry and fire four rounds without reloading. It used a rather unusual open-bolt mechanism that I (and I assume Prudence) don't quite understand. When you fully cock the hammer, a shell drops into position between the bolt and chamber. Pulling the trigger causes the bolt to drop forward, chamber the cartridge, lock it in place, and fire it. Cock the hammer again and the fired casing leaves the chamber but stays in the rotary magazine, and a new shell slips into the firing position. As a result, you can fire four rounds before you have to unload four empty shells from the magazine carousel. Lucky for me, I had Bob to help me understand this process, while Prudence had Thomas Johnson to teach her how to shoot. 

The Roper revolving shotgun was invented by a man named Sylvester Howard Roper, who invented a lot of things besides arms. Born November 24, 1823 in Francestown, New Hampshire, he showed interest in mechanical contraptions form an early age. When he was twelve he made a stationary steam engine even though he had never seen one. Two years later, he built a locomotive engine. Roper left Francestown at a young age to pursue work as a machinist.In 1842 he filed for his first patent, which was on a padlock. 1854 he invented a small, handheld sewing machine. In 1861 he invented a hot air engine and filed  patents for several more. His most powerful engine could produce 4 HP. His last invention, filed with the patent office in 1894, was for a fire-escape.

Roper's interest in guns may have begun during the Civil War, when he worked at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts. More formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal, and opened in 1777, it was the first federal armory and one of the first factories in the United States dedicated to the manufacture of weapons.The Armory closed in 1968.

While Roper was there, the facility outpaced Confederate firearm production by a ratio of 32 to 1, a decisive factor in the outcome of the war. Advancements in machine manufacturing allowed the Armory to increase production capacity from just 9,601 firearms in 1860 to 276,200 in 1864. In addition to shear numbers, advancements in technology and design made the name Springfield famous for its muskets and rifles and inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to write an anti-war poem about the factory. The Springfield Model 1903 continued to be used in both World War One and Two.

Roper invented the first shotgun choke, a set of short tubes that could be threaded onto the outside of a shotgun barrel. This allowed the shooter to vary how wide his shot would spread, suiting different targets and ranges.

He invented his revolving shotgun and a revolving repeating rifle sometime around 1866, when he filed for a patent on his creation. In 1882, he and the more famous gunmaker Christopher Miner Spencer were granted a joint patent for an even more sophisticated repeating shotgun mechanism. Roper continued to refine revolving magazines and repeating mechanisms, filing more patents in 1889.

But Roper's first love was engines, not firearms, and it was engines that gave him his most glory and was possibly the cause of his death. 

In 1863 he built one of the earliest automobiles, a steam carriage that he drove around his Boston neighborhood. The Roper steam velocipede, built in 1867, was a kind of bicycle with an attached steam engine, and may have been the first ever motorcycle. Sylvester Roper was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002 because of this invention, which should figure prominently in every steampunk novel or movie.

The contraption had an oak and steel frame. It ran on handcrafted ash wheels, which must have produced a hard, bumpy ride. The rider placed his feet on footpegs that stuck out of the front axle, a position that was not ideal for steering.  

The engine was powered by vertical firetube boiler that was heated by charcoal. It had one cylinder on each side of the frame and used the rear axle as a crankshaft. Piston valves were driven by return cranks on the outside of the main cranks. The water-tank was in the seat, and the steam pressure gauge was connected by a rubber hose to the seat's front.

Roper exhibited his steam buggies and velocipedes at circuses and county fairs, where they were huge hits. 

Father Stanley: New Mexico's Priest and Historian

 

In 1940, a 38-year-old former Franciscan named Francis Stanley Louis Crocchiola arrived in Taos to take his position as assistant pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. The journey to Taos had been a long and complicated one, but his arrival marked the beginning of a remarkable career that continues to influence how people study the history of New Mexico.

Francis Stanley Louis Crocchiola began life as Louis Crocchiola.  The sixth child in a family that eventually grew to eleven children, he was born in Greenwich Village, New York on Halloween, October 31, 1908. His parents, Vincent and Rose Crocchiola, were Italian immigrants.

During his junior year at the all-boys DeWitt Clinton High School, Crocchiola decided he wanted to become a teacher. However, since teaching positions were few and far between in the late 1920s, his parish priest suggested he join the church and combine teaching with the priesthood. Despite his father’s objections, Louis enlisted in the Franciscan Order of the Atonement and began his seminary studies at St. John’s on the Hudson in New York. He was ordained on February 10, 1938 at Immaculate Conception Shrine in Washington, D.C. and began teaching at the same seminary from which he had graduated.

Then, God intervened. Three days after being ordained, doctors found two spots on his right lung. Crocchiola, who had added Frances and Stanley to his name when he was ordained, had developed tuberculosis. Antibiotics had not yet been developed, and the cure for tuberculosis was to live in a place with a dry climate and low humidity. Church officials allowed the priest to choose where he could go to recuperate and Crocchiola, who had been fascinated by tales of the Old West, chose Hereford, Texas, in the flat and arid Llano Estacado.

Crocchiola, who now went by the far easier to spell and pronounce name of Father Stanley, did not arrive in Hereford to propitious signs for his recovery. He stepped off the train in February 1939 during one of the region’s black dust storms. Furthermore, while the Archdiocese of New York wanted their priest to heal, they also needed his services. By fall, he found himself back in New York, again teaching at St. John’s. For two years, he bounced back and forth from duties on the east coast and brief respites on Texas plains as his health deteriorated.

Finally, Father Stanley sent an urgent request to his governing board, the Commission of the Archdiocese of New York, to find a permanent place for him in a southwestern climate. Since they were not able to meet his pleas, they granted him permission to find his own solution to his problem. Father Stanley left the Franciscans and became a diocesan priest. He then appealed to the Archbishop of Santa Fe, R. A. Gerken, for an assignment in New Mexico, arguing that he was fluent in Spanish. The archbishop assigned him the assistant pastorate of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Taos.

A year later, Father Stanley became the pastor of San Miguel Church in Socorro. He later served parishes in Raton, Villa Nueva, Sapello and Pecos. While he was serving at Pecos, he was sitting in a restaurant owned by a man who had formerly been a policeman in New York City. Stanley asked about a bullet hole in the restaurant’s front window and the former cop confessed that the hole had a real story and the one he told because it was good for business. The truth was, someone, he did not know who, had accidentally put a bullet hole in the window. But when people asked about it, the owner said it was from someone who was shooting at Jesse James. This prompted Stanley to begin questioning whether the stories he heard from his parishioners were true or mythic.

In 1946 Father Stanley became the fifth pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church, a small adobe structure on Martinez Street in the eastern section of Raton, New Mexico. His rectory had been a coal camp house in a town filled with a lot of mining and history of immigrants who came to work those mines. He contacted the Santa Fe Archives Department requesting information about the town, and received a six-volume set of books. Only one page was about Raton.

 Stanley decided to do his own research, interviewing Raton natives, searching through documents in the county clerk’s office, the public library, and the files of The Raton Daily Range. This resulted in a steady stream of articles about Raton and other Colfax spots published in Catholic and historical periodicals.  In 1948, he published his first book, The Raton Chronicle. He convinced several women who worked at local banks to transcribe and type his handwritten manuscript and got a local artist to design and illustrate the cover. Knowing that Father Francis Stanley Louis Crocchiola was too difficult for most people to pronounce or spell, he published with book under the pen name F. Stanley. While most people today assume the F is for Father and refers to his priesthood, it actually stands for Francis. 

But if The Raton Chronicle was F. Stanley’s first book, it certainly wasn’t his last. He decided to write a book about every town in New Mexico, even the remote, thinly populated ones and the ones that had ceased to exist. Stanley wanted readers to be able to understand what life was like, even in the most out-of-the-way places in New Mexico. He wanted readers to have the opportunity to glimpse the minutiae of life in a bygone era.  “Now and then people talk about places like Yeso,” Stanley writes in his introduction to his book The Yeso New Mexico Story, “but no one seems interested enough to preserve its history on paper. It may not be exciting or interesting, but it is a place, it has a name, it has people. Yeso may not be important to the man at the wheel trying to make it from California to New York in three or four days, but it is very important to the people who call it home or once called it home.”

Stanley’s dedication led to the publication of 177 books. While his The Civil War in New Mexico is a whopping 544 pages, most of his titles run from eighteen to twenty-six pages. Printed on folded-over 8.5 x 11 paper which has either been stapled or saddle-stitched in the cross-section, these little editions are a kind of historical chapbook. Most have the same, simply-designed cover featuring a red zia symbol on a bright yellow background, and a title that states the name of the subject, a town, village, or ghost town in a format such as “The Wallace (New Mexico) Story” depicted here and published in 1962. The information in these booklets include snippets of old-timer gossip, and facts gleaned from newspaper clippings, old hotel registers, and the records of early explorers to the region. 

A few years back, I received a large assortment of F. Stanley’s books. Looking through them, I found them an amusing and sometimes charming collection of gossip, recollections, and detailed minutiae that fascinated me. Even though it is relatively close to where I live, I had never heard of Wallace, a town that Stanley said was thirty-three miles northeast of Albuquerque and three miles east of Santo Domingo pueblo, along the Galisteo River. Wallace, he said, was along the stagecoach trail that also linked San Pedro and Golden and was an important station along the A.T.&S.F.R.R railroad. Stanley provides the names of the leading businesses of the town and the positions of those who were in town government. He talks about how the locals built their own school, and what they did for entertainment.

But the most interesting bits of information were the ones about J. H. (otherwise known as Ellis) Conway, who was the town’s fourth Justice of the Peace. Stanley states that Conway, whose real name was O. L. Hale, was arrested in Silver City, New Mexico in February 1883 by an Iowa Sheriff who wanted to extradite him to Lucas county, Iowa on forgery and jailbreaking charges. On their train trip back east, a second sheriff, this one from Trinidad, Colorado, tried to wrest Conway from the Iowa sheriff so that Conway would face manslaughter charges dating back to 1878. Also included in Stanley’s telling is corruption in Wallace, including a bunco ring. (Bunco then must not have been the fun game it is now.) Stanley’s story was just too fun, and it became the basis for my novel The Winding Road to Wallace.

After decades as a priest in New Mexico, Stanley was sent back to Texas, where he served in the Texas communities of Rotan, St. Francis, Canadian, Stratford, White Deer, Lubbock, Friona, Dumas, Pep, Amarillo, and finally, Nazareth. On his days off he did research at West Texas’ A&M University Library. He often used his vacations to visit with older residents of small western towns to gather more information for his books. 

The former New Yorker, sent out west by his superiors to recover his health, became fascinated by the heritage of New Mexico. He loved the state, and apparently the state loved him back, for instead of dying young, he lived until 1996, when he died at the advanced age of 87. He is buried in the Nazareth, Texas cemetery.

Remembrances of Christmas Past: The Civil War

Christmas is always difficult for those who are far away from home and in difficult circumstances.  In Where Duty Calls, book one of my trilogy of Middle grade historical novels set during the Civil War in New Mexico Territory, Jemmy Martin finds himself gathered around a campfire on Christmas Eve, eating food that is far less than festive. 

     “Hey, Cookie, dinner ready?” Frederick Wade asked. “This boy’s stomach is growling louder than thunder."

    “Coming right up.” Kemp doubled up his blanket and used it to protect his hand as he took the skillet from the coals. He pulled off the lid, revealing browned biscuits floating atop watery gravy with a few bits of meat. “Eat up, boys.”

    Norvell groaned, but he held out his plate. “Sop and biscuits again? On this night of all nights, can’t we have something decent? Something festive?”

    “You were expecting eggnog?” Wade asked.

    Jemmy watched Norvell’s face grow red. “Eggnog would have been nice.”

    “Where’s the jokes, Norvell?” Wade asked, and he was right. No one in the squad had ever seen Norvell in this foul of a mood before.

    “Same place as the eggnog,” Norvell said with a grumble, “and the stockings. What I wouldn’t give for a plum pudding right now.”

    “Wait a minute,” Jemmy said, his mind finally taking in what was being said. “Eggnog? Plum pudding?”

    Norvell turned a baleful eye on Jemmy. His face had grown so red that it looked like a tomato in the campfire. “Haven’t you been keeping track of time, Little Britches? It’s Christmas Day, and here we are, in the middle of nowhere, with water scarce and good wood even scarcer, and all we get to eat is biscuits and something to sop up with ‘em. I’m tired of eating this way.”

    “Yeah, and I’m tired of listening to you shoot off your trap, so just shut up and eat,” Jemmy roared back. It was so rare that Jemmy took on another man that everyone around the fire stopped to look at him. Jemmy didn’t care. He tucked into his food without looking up, because he was afraid that if he did, someone might spy the tears that glittered in his eyes.

Two years earlier, Cian Lachlann, who will fight against Jemmy at the Battle of Glorieta Pass the next March, is huddled in a flimsy tent on the steep side of a Rocky Mountain slope with three other men. The war has not yet begun, but Cian's dreams of striking it rich during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush have grown cold and he's feeling hopeless until one of the other men finds a way to fill this cold night with joy. A Clear Creek Christmas tells the story of that Christmas Eve.

By Christmas of  1862, some 40,000 sick and wounded Union soldiers filled the 38 hospitals (23 in Washington, 10 in Alexandria, and 5 in Georgetown) military hospitals in the Washington, D.C area. Those men, like Cian and Jemmy, missed the comforts of home, the foods and traditions that make the season memorable. Luckily for them, a small group of women decided to bring  holiday cheer to the soldiers by providing a Christmas feast. Elizabeth Watton, wife of Caleb B. Smith, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Interior first conceived of the idea. 

Carver Hospital in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War

 Watton and her committee went to work soliciting donations. President  and Mrs. Lincoln donated $650 to the cause, and the city of Philadelphia threw in another $2,500. Other cities, such as Pittsburgh, which donated turkeys, sent food, decorations, or other necessities. 

            Washington Chronicle: December 27, 1862

 On Christmas Day, soldiers awoke to evergreen garlands and the aroma of turkey, chicken, vegetables, rice, plum pudding, and pies wafting through the air.  President Lincoln, walked through many of the wards, shaking hands and speaking words of kindness and encouragement to the soldiers. The Washington Chronicle declared that, “Washington has seen this year probably the most remarkable celebration of Christmas Day that ever occurred in the history of the world.”

A year later, Charlie Longfellow, the oldest son of Boston poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was shot during a skirmish during the Mine Run Campaign. The bullet entered his left shoulder, traveled through his back and exited under his right shoulder blade, barely missing his spine. That Christmas Day, Longfellow heard the bells ringing and was inspired to write a poem. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day was set to music less than a decade later and has become a beloved Christmas carol. 

Author Jennifer Chiaverini takes the story of why Longfellow composed that poem and intertwines it with a contemporary story set in Boston, where a choir director at a Catholic church uses the song in her choir's Christmas Eve concert. The contemporary story is interesting, in that Chiaverini offers the same scene, the rehersal, over and over, each time through the eyes of a different character. I think any writer wondering if they've used the right character as the one to be the point of view character would benefit from reading this book, as would all who want a warm and comforting read for the holidays. 

God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. A merry Christmas to you all. 

Larches

 

This past October my husband and I took a trip to New England to see the turning foliage. We were driving through the northern part of Vermont when we passed through a grove of what appeared to be conifers, and yet, all the needles were yellow. Coming from New Mexico, where bark beetles are decimating the piñon and ponderosa pine trees and douglas-fir tussock moth is wreaking havoc among fir trees, we wondered why all these pines were dying.

You east coast people are chuckling at the naivete of this westerner. Or maybe it’s a northerner vs southerner thing. Either way, you probably know that the trees we were passing weren’t dying—they’re larches.

Most conifers are evergreen—they hold their leaves throughout the year. Larches are among the few deciduous conifers. That means when autumn arrives, they join the maples, elms and oaks in turning colors and then shedding their leaves. Larch leaves, like many other pine trees, are needle-like, either growing singly on long shoots with several buds or in dense clusters of 20 to 50 needles on short shoots with only a single bud. On young trees, the bark is smooth, but grows thick and scaly with age. Larches can live to be very old. The wood of the Larch wood is resinous, tough and durable enough to be used in boatbuilding, garden furniture, and fencing. Larches are also harvested for arabinogalactan, a thickener used in food, rosin, turpentine, and essential oils.

Larches, along with pines and spruces, make up the boreal forest, which the world's largest land biome.

In North America, it covers most of the northern United States including Alaska, and inland Canada. Almost half of the forests in the Soviet Union are made of larches, making it the most abundant genus of trees on earth.

The larches that we saw in northern Vermont go by the scientific name Larix laricina, and have many common names. They are called the tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, and American larch. Whatever their name, this species lives in Canada from the eastern Yukon and Inuvik, into the Northwest Territories, and east into Newfoundland. In the United States, they live in central Alaska, the upper northeast from Minnesota to Maine, and as far south as West Virginia.

While the yellow needled larches we saw were not dying, there are things that attack these beautiful trees. The larvae of the larch pug moth feeds on this tree, and the large larch bark beetle can be harmful, especially larch trees that have already been weakened by drought or other factors. When late spring frosts cause minor injuries to the trees, larches can develop a fungal canker disease, and a mushroom found in Europe, North America and northern Asia causes internal wood rot in some of the larch species.

Larches are northern trees, abundant in the taigas surrounding the north pole. They do not grow in New Mexico, so it’s not surprising that my husband and I didn’t recognize them. We didn’t even notice them when we were in Maine during the summer, when their needles were as green as the piñons and ponderosas were used to, but in fall they add to the show. We’re glad we’ve made their acquaintance.

Great Christmas Books for Middle Grade Readers

 

Great Christmas Books for Middle Grade Readers

  Everyone loves a good Christmas read. Here's a short list of some of the best for middle grade readers.

Jingle Night, the second in The Anderson Chronicles, my series of contemporary novels for middle grade readers. Hector Anderson just can't get in the holiday spirit. He's loaded down with homework, and too broke to buy presents for his family or his heart throb, Sandy. Meanwhile, sister Chloe wants to be the angel of death in the holiday play, a role as silent as younger brother Calvin's been since the loss of his hand puppet, Mr. Buttons. Little brother Stevie can only remember four words from the song he must sing at the Little Leapers Preschool Pageant, but he uses his slingshot to spread Christmas cheer, which Hec's perfectionist Father doesn't appreciate. Hec is determined to solve his problems, and while Mom tries to eggnog and carol everyone into the Christmas spirit, he and his best buddy Eddie embark on a madcap plan to solve Hec's Christmas dilemma.




As if reenacting the game of Clue, The Green Glass House takes place in an old inn that's usually quiet at Christmastime. But this year, it fills with a hodge-podge of quirky guests, all of whom seem to be searching for the answer to a different mystery. Twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers' adopted son, turns into the sleuth who must solve them all. This story is part mystery, part folk tale, and part ghost story, with enough twists and turns to keep even the most finicky reader entertained.

The main character in Richard Peck's A Season of Gifts is twelve year old Bob, the son of a preacher and new kid in town, but the heart of this sequel to the Newbery Award winning A Long Way to Chicago and the Newbery Honor book A Year Down Yonder is the eccentric Mrs. Dowdel, an elderly, grumpy, gun-wielding woman who claims to have no interest in neighboring or in church, but has special gifts to share with both her neighbors and their new church.

 Children of Christmas has six stories by the Newbery Honor winning author Cynthia Rylant that are perfect for reading aloud, if you can control your emotions. Like Hans Christian Andersen's Little Match Girl, these poignant stories of lonely and desperate people are are  guaranteed to make you cry, yet her exquisite writing also conveys the special joy of the season, Stories include one of a lonely man who raises Christmas trees, a stray cat who finds shelter, an elderly widower missing his wife, an Appalachian boy who waits each year for a train bringing gifts, and more.

 From Anna, by Jean Little, begins in Germany in 1933. Anna Solden is the youngest and clumsiest in a large family that treats her like the incompetent baby. After they immigrate to America to escape the worsening political scene, the family discovers that Anna can barely see. A new pair of glasses and a special class for the visually impaired helps her blossom into a proficient and confident child. The climax features a Christmas during the depression that might have been dismal had it not been for the pluck and cheerfulness of the family, and at which Anna comes into her own and proves to her family - and herself - that she can do anything she sets her mind to.

How was Christmas celebrated in 13th century England? Nathaniel Marshall, the son of a knight, spends Christmas at Glastonbury Abbey in my novel On Fledgling Wings. Nathaniel waits to see if the legend that the animals will speak at midnight is true, wonders if the saints looking down on him from the church friezes are watching him, and gets to serve the roast boar at the Christmas day banquet. But all too soon the peace of the season will pass, and Nathaniel will be embroiled in a battle for power at the manor house.

Spooky Fun for Middle Grade Readers

Halloween on the Butterfield Trail

    Published October 2025 by TCU Press

     Hardback, 123 pages, $19.99. 

When eleven-year-old twins Bird and Wiley join their father and mother on a stagecoach ride along the Butterfield Trail, they expect adventure but feel very differently about it. Bird is the kind of boy who craves it. He loves being in on the action and is always moving, always doing, and usually getting himself into trouble. He wants to sit up top in the driver's seat with his father. Wiley is just the opposite; he likes to read about adventure, but doesn't like to experience any hardships. Wiley is happy to stay in the cab, although even that is a little bouncier and dust-choked than he would like. 

An encounter with Zeb at a river crossing makes Bird think about fairness and equality. Zeb is a slave boy doing a man's work of poling the ferry across the Red River into Texas under the heavy-handed discipline of another slave. It's no surprise he wants to be free. That night, Zeb steals a horse and crosses the river in search of the $500 that will buy his freedom.

But then things get spooky. A freak storm separates the twins from the coach and they find themselves in a dark woods filled with howling wolves, flapping bats, and rattlesnakes. Spooks appear, too, including ghostly bells, glowing tombstones, headless horsemen, wailing ghostly women, and old forked-tail himself. 

In the middle of all this terror they run across Zeb and help him find a hidden treasure only to discover that it's been stolen from hardworking folks.

When they finally reconnect with the stagecoach, they find that their father's been injured and cannot drive the team. Although only a child, Bird must step up and do his father's job. But can he drive the team through a bison stampede? 

Dearen peppers the thrills with laugh-out-loud dialog and humorous turns of phrase that will keep readers smiling. I won't say it (an inside joke you will understand if you read the book), but you will be amused.

This may all sound like a rollicking, exciting story, but it will make readers think about deep and important issues. Throughout the book Bird grapples with questions like why he and Zeb can't be friends and which is the greater good: returning stolen money or using it to free a slave. And although this book takes the moral high ground, it does so in a way that's not preachy. Bird, Wiley and Zeb are left to make their own decisions, and so is the reader. 

Set in 1860, Dearen has filled this story with words and phrases that were used at the time but feel remarkably fresh to the modern reader. He does a good job of explaining things that modern readers might not understand. The closing chapter tells the history and folklore behind the story and offers suggestions for further reading. 

Spooky enough to raise the hair on a young head, yet clean and nonviolent enough to keep parents and teachers happy, this would be a great book for October read alouds in upper elementary and middle school classrooms and is a great read for ages 9-13. 

I have one hardbound copy to give away. If you'd like to receive it, leave a comment on this blog. 

About the Author

Patrick Dearen grew up in a small town in West Texas. He is the author of twenty-nine books, eighteen of which are adult fiction and ten are adult nonfiction. This is his first book for children. He is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame and has been honored by Western Fictioneers, Academy of Western Artists, San Antonio Conservation Society, West Texas Historical Association, and New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards . His books have been finalists for or won the Peacemaker Award, the Elmer Kelton Award, the Will Rogers Gold Medallion and WWA's Spur Award.