Book stack update

After we thoroughly enjoyed the Chuck Wagon Gathering and Kids Cowboy Festival in the City several weeks ago, I read One Thousand White Women. Now I'm watching TNT's "Into the West" 6-week series. Very interesting and enjoyable. Makes you think, makes you sad and angry.

So... here are the related books that I've acquired from the library.

• The Big Roundup: an anthology of the best classic and contemporary poetry from CowboyPoetry.com


• The Chuck Wagon Cookbook: Recipes from the ranch and range for today's kitchen


• Cowboy Life on the Texas Plains: The photographs of Ray Rector


• Guide to Manuscripts in the Western History Collections of the University of Oklahoma


• The Modern Cowboy, and Some Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys, essays by John R. Erickson (yes, the author of the Hank the Cowdog series!)


• Trail drive: a true narrative of cowboy life from Andy Adams' Log of a cowboy

And for both Son1 and me to read (depending on whether he cracks any open!):

• Boy Settler in the Cherokee Strip -- old book with intertwined stories of a native American boy and a white settler boy


• Rifles for Watie


• The Heart of a Chief, by Joseph Bruchac -- I recognize the author as a teller and writer of native stories for environmental educators


• The Birchbark House, by Louise Erdrich -- I've heard raves about this


• Streams to the River, River to the Sea: A novel of Sacagawea


• Cowboy, a large-format DK-style book


• Cowboy Cooking -- info and recipes, for kids


• Sarah, Plain and Tall -- I've heard it's so good; a planned read-aloud.


• Little House in the Big Woods, the first in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series; I'm going to try reading this aloud to Son2 since Son1 dismisses the very idea (he and I bogged down in Farmer Boy, about the time he started reading for himself a LOT)

Maybe it's a good thing I live in Oklahoma and we can go visit some forts and homesteads, and call this exploring our history. It's not like I've had, oh, say, Women of the West on my bookshelf for over a decade or anything. Or went on a "West" reading kick a year ago and read a lot of journals and scholarly stuff...

I kept my wits about me, though, and got some completely unrelated reading for Son1 as well. I only have about two weeks before the new Harry Potter sucks him back into reading all of the HPs again, anyway. We'll see how it goes. Certainly I plan to read these books -- most look really great!