Books for gifted children from Royal Fireworks Press, publishers for the gifted education curriculum.

Charissa of the Overland

Novel

Class sets of 20 or more: $7.00 each. (Order Code: 3709S) Add to Cart

1862, Missouri. Set against the action of Quantrill’s Raiders, Westward Expansion, Indians, and unrest over the Civil War, this novel tells the amazing, story of Charissa Pankhurst, A.K.A. Charlie Pankhurst.

Charissa’s parents died of typhoid. Southern zealots forced her much older husband and her to hide out and live in caves in the Ozarks. Her husband was mercifully shot when he contracted rabies, and the young wounded Union soldier Charissa met while living in the caves was hunted down and hanged by Quantrill’s Raiders. Feeling it her duty to tell the young man’s parents, she risked her life to get to their farm. This was Charissa’s journey of change. At the farm, needing to take control of her life, she vowed to kill Quantrill. There, sixteen-year-old Charissa clipped her hair and cast aside her calico skirts to morph into Charlie, a young man with freedom a woman could never know...then struck out for an adventure-filled life on the rough frontier.

Intending to follow through on her vow, Charlie joins the raiders, and meets Quantrill’s young wife, Kate, and Doctor Benson. Kate immediately knows Charlie’s secret, but keeps it because she wants a female friend to talk to. Doc Benson knows too, but his business is doctoring and getting to Texas. Charlie helps the good doctor, breaks horses for Quantrill and learns to drive a buck-board. Eventually Kate tells her husband about Charlie, and he too keeps the secret from his men, because he loves his wife. Charlie cannot kill Quantrill and leaves the Raiders instead. Charlie begins to work with a 16-mule team operation, does a stint as a horse jockey, becomes a jerk-line freighter, and eventually drives the big, Concord stagecoaches across the West. Charlie’s relationships with men and women exhibit humor as Charissa perfects her walk, tobacco chewing and spitting expertise. They reach memorable proportions when squaws capture Charlie spying on their ceremony and prepare to castrate him, only to discover “his” secret. The women collapse laughing, and Charissa makes her escape. Later, Charlie becomes very close to her freight-hauling boss, and is certain that he knows she is a woman when he announces that he has a proposition to put forth. Sure that he will propose marriage, Charissa buys a velvet dress for her unveiling. But she is mistaken. His proposition is an offer to Charlie for half of the business. Those who met Charlie early and recognized that he was a girl in disguise, kept the secret, did not question his motivation, and offered suggestions for appearance improvement. Charissa listened well!

Author Phyllis de la Garza’s works have been reviewed as “Grassroots at its best.... thorough and commendable.... a delicious sense of humor.... both sympathetic and evenhanded....” She is a member of Western Writers of America and a SPUR Award finalist. The author makes her home in Southeastern Arizona.

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