Reviews

The Ghosts of Luckless Gulch by Anne Isaacs

bookarian's review

3.0

"California gold rush, western tall tale, girl and her pets"

books_n_pickles's review

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

 A tall tale full of fun exaggeration treated as true, from the fiery trails that speedy Estella leaves in her wake when she runs, to the fantastical animals that come to her for care, to the (so creatively!) frozen town of Luckless Gulch. When Estella's rock-breaking and -eating pets are stolen, she races all over pancake-flat California asking Gold Rush hopefuls for news. She hears of a mysterious frozen town greedy dead prospectors have frozen the land so they can dig in the dark they prefer...and what does an incorporeal ghost miner need but some rock-breaking animals to help? Good thing they don't call her Estella corriente, the running star, for nothing! Still, the angry ghosts creat enough of a ruckus to throw up quite a few hills and shake the ground from time to time.

Lots of fun, but picture book for an older audience--there's quite a bit of text on each page and the parts where Estella meets her three pets and where a miner tells her the stories of three starving prospectors slow down the pace a bit.

I also loved the whitewood-to-redwood detail (the white trees got sunburned when the hills put them too close to the sun), but couldn't fit it in here since it was kind of just a side note in the story. 

erine's review

I love Dan Santat's illustrations of this young woman who uses her smarts and her skills to rescue her very special pets.