Rating: WORTHY!
I wanted to read this because it was about time travel - my favorite sci-fi subject. That was a mistake. Not reading it, but thinking of it as sci-fi. It's better to think of this not as science fiction, but as fairy-tale fantasy, so when these three children time-travel back to the Old West, it's actually better to think of them visiting 'cowboyland', wherein exists talking horses and goofy villains (including some genuine Old West lily-livered varmints!). Viewed in that light, and one major issue aside, I considered this a worthy read for the age range at which it's aimed, which is young children.
This is volume two in a series, but you don't have to have read volume one to enjoy this, although it would help to fill in some background. Nina, Ivy, and Oswald are friends who help out in an old bookstore called "Lost Books". It's a dusty, rambling old place, with twisty passages and multiple small rooms. I actually knew a bookstore like this one once, but in the place I knew, there was no miraculous key to a secretive door wherein lay magic books which could transport you to wonderful places, I'm sorry to report. At least not one that I was aware of....
In this adventure, the three kids go to Dakota's Bluff, but there's no indication as to where exactly it's supposed to be. We're told that it's hot, but the Dakotas (North and South) do not get particularly hot, even in July. However, the mid-eighties would feel hot to a British visitor. Maybe Dakota's Bluff was in another state, but Wachiwi, the name of an important character, native American girl, in this story, is a Sioux name, and the Dakota/Lakota Sioux were resident in this region. The girl's name means 'dancer', so maybe her full name was Wachiwi with Wolves? LOL!
The problem in this town is Rude Robbie and his gang, who want to raze the town to build a gun factory. Rude Robbie's idea of a gun is a more like a Nerf gun - but which spits out gooey custard-like "bullets". Nina becomes the new sheriff, and her two pals become deputies. Also deputized is Wachiwi . The four to them plan to track down the jewel-encrusted gold sheriff's star, which is of such value that the town people would be able to buy the entire town outright and scotch Robbie's villainous scheme. In order to do this, they must follow a map, overcome snake-oil salesmen, bandits, and traps, and deliver the star back to the mayor of the town.
I had a few issues, but overall I liked the story. I liked that Wachiwi educated the trio that not all native Americans lived in tipis (although actually, the Sioux did! They were the earliest example of mobile homes in the USA!). The explanation here was much simplified, but depending on the tribe, they also lived in houses - although the houses were not quite like those you might imagine from the towns depicted in your standard western movie; they were longhouses and wigwams, and so on, of many designs and construction materials.
Here's an interesting writing issue. When you make up a word, do you feel a need to follow established rules or do you simply make up what you want and damn the torpedoes? I bring this up because there's a non-word used in this story: correctamundo. Since it isn't really a word, although it's often used, does the spelling matter? Should it be 'correctimundo' or 'correctamondo'? I think If I'd written it, the way I would have done it would be to use the same spelling as the one in the book, but substitute an 'i' for the 'a' in the middle there. I have no valid reason for spelling it that way. I think maybe I'm thinking of Connecticut, and using the 'i' because of that, which is a nonsensical reason for it, but it just seems to fit better to me. In the end, does it matter? I think it's worth thinking about. For an odd word here and there, I don't think it does matter, but if you're making up some sort of foreign language for use in your story, then it really ought to matter about spelling and verbs, and rules for forming words. Just a thought from the writing perspective!
My biggest beef was that native Americans were not treated well during this era, and any young "Indian" girl running into a store would be unlikely to be shielded from a white man chasing her. She'd likely be denounced as a potential thief. Any native American taking horses would likely be summarily shot, yet Wachiwi takes four and no one says a word. Maybe these horses belonged to her tribe, but no mention is made of this. It would have been nice to have had some word in this story about how poorly these people (along with Asians and African Americans) were treated, but there is none here. Everyone is friends and buddies. That's not to say there were not such relationships, but those were not the norm, and I felt it was glossed over here too easily.
That aside the story was written well for its intended age group, the only error I recall seeing was one in which 'where' was misused in place of 'were' as in "What where they up to?" No spell-checker is going to catch that one! I'm recommending this though, as a worthy read with the above caveats and the hope that future stories will educate as well as entertain.
