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Rachel Chance
When someone kidnaps her brother, Rider, fifteen-year-old Rachel Chance is certain that Pastor Woodie, the clergyman in her Bible thumping town, has something to do with Rider's disappearance, and she takes matters into her own hands. Reprint.
- GenresYoung Adult
175 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
26 people want to read
About the author
Jean Thesman
42 books48 followersJean Thesman was a widely read and award-winning American author known for her young adult fiction, with a career spanning over 25 years. Her novels often explored themes of family, identity, and belonging, frequently featuring heroines who find their place in the world by uncovering truths about their families and forming chosen connections. “I loved telling the story,” she once wrote, “because I really believed that families were made up of the people you wanted, not the people you were stuck with.”
Born with a passion for storytelling and literacy, she learned to read before starting school and recalled having to wait until she was six years old before being allowed her first library card. Throughout her career, she authored around 40 books, most under her own name but a few under the pseudonym T.J. Bradstreet.
Thesman published a wide range of novels for teens and middle-grade readers, including stand-alone works such as The Rain Catchers, Calling the Swan, and Cattail Moon, as well as series like The Whitney Cousins, The Birthday Girls, and The Elliott Cousins. Her lyrical style, emotional depth, and strong female characters earned her a loyal readership. Notable works like The Ornament Tree and In the House of the Queen’s Beasts remain particularly admired for their nuanced storytelling and emotional resonance.
She was a longtime resident of Washington state and an active member of The Authors Guild and the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Jean Thesman passed away in 2016 at the age of 86, leaving behind a significant legacy in young adult literature.
Born with a passion for storytelling and literacy, she learned to read before starting school and recalled having to wait until she was six years old before being allowed her first library card. Throughout her career, she authored around 40 books, most under her own name but a few under the pseudonym T.J. Bradstreet.
Thesman published a wide range of novels for teens and middle-grade readers, including stand-alone works such as The Rain Catchers, Calling the Swan, and Cattail Moon, as well as series like The Whitney Cousins, The Birthday Girls, and The Elliott Cousins. Her lyrical style, emotional depth, and strong female characters earned her a loyal readership. Notable works like The Ornament Tree and In the House of the Queen’s Beasts remain particularly admired for their nuanced storytelling and emotional resonance.
She was a longtime resident of Washington state and an active member of The Authors Guild and the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Jean Thesman passed away in 2016 at the age of 86, leaving behind a significant legacy in young adult literature.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 31, 2019
I was pulling books at my library's bookstore and this was going to be thrown away because it had been out on the shelf too long. I felt bad to throw it out and thought it was worth taking a chance on.
It's set in 1940 in Washington state during WWII which the summary didn't share. Rachel was looking back on that summer, when her brother Rider was stolen and she turned 15 four weeks later. I was interested in this book because of the mention of the hired hand. And it didn't take long. She was having her birthday party and Grandpa had invited Hank, who's 16, who wouldn't have been there otherwise because he and Rachel despised each other. I love the enemies relationship! He gave her a dollar bill in a homemade card, which was a lot of money at that time.
I've read books similar to this, written around this time, (1990) and it has the same colorful writing and country talk and sayings.
"You made so much racket that the cow dried up and the chickens quit laying."
"Mike Webster was behind the door when the brains were passed out, but he could remember a lump on the skull if you gave him one that was big enough."
"I was only trying out the idea to see how that man took to it."
The language in here is terrible, I mean awful, and repeatedly so. She used the word retard and GD 7 times. The pastor used the word bastard and the n word. Also, plenty of racism which existed at this time, because the pastor said there's a colored person working at the soda fountain where her mom was, and he asked Grandpa if he wanted his son's widow with an n word. Druid Annie said sumbitch twice. A social worker called Jonah the retarded boy.
Rachel's dad died 7 years earlier and her mom was gone working and one day a man brought her back home, then she turned up pregnant and had a baby with the same color eyes and eyelashes as that man. People in town would say how pretty Rider was but it's too bad he's illegitimate. The pastor came when Rider was a baby and said there were two bastards in the house, meaning her mentally challenged cousin, Jonah, whose dad had died, and Rider. He also said it's no place for a girl and the baby. He had said Jonah's birth defects were a punishment from God. Definitely religion at its worst, or people's misinterpretations of religion at its worst. There were so many things to be upset about, and I can't stand pastors who preach this bigotry, discrimination, racism, and brimstone and hellfire crap. Even worse, Pastor Woodie ran a bordello. I couldn’t stand this kind of hypocrisy and corruption.
Hank comes after school and on the weekends to help out around the house. I was enjoying the moment when one say at school she got there late and went to sit behind Hank. He turned and grinned at her, and she told him to turn around and poked him with her pencil. He said he bet she didn't rake the chicken house and her grandpa made her do it this morning. She told him she'd done it last night and he didn't believe her, said sure you did and said he'd have to do it Saturday and told her she's as lazy as Banjo, her dog.
And then I got severely ticked off as the mean girl came into the story, Maysie. Hank liked her and of course she had boobs, though they were described as "hard-looking." Not sure what that means, but of course she unbuttons the top buttons on her shirts and boys follow her home, while Rachel wears baggy, conservative clothes. I was pissed off when Rachel said that one day when Rider was working in the barn he told her that he'd kissed Maysie. She hit him with the shovel and he stopped telling her things. She wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him or anyone else. I can't get away from this even in kid's books. I hoped she'd kiss someone else first but since girls don't get that chance, I seriously doubted it.
It was interesting when Grandpa said about Druid Annie: "Her folks came from Wales. The Welsh see trouble in every shadow and hear it in the wind. That's because they had legends instead of laws. Americans put our faith in laws instead of old tales about spirits living at the bottom of lakes and fortunetellers in caves. We don't believe in spooks..."
One day they'd gone to town and Grandpa told Hank to come and help him the kids in line. Jonah had taken Rider's hand, and Hank had held out his hand to Rachel, grinned, and asked if she needed help. I like Rachel's spunk. She thought she was a true Chance woman, not a lady like her mom, so she hit his arm hard and told him to help Maysie. I felt so bad for her because she'd never forgotten or forgiven him for telling her he'd kissed Maysie.
His family pressured him to work full-time but he wanted to finish school. Her grandpa offered to let him stay in the barn storeroom if his parents got too bad. His family was full of drunks and jailbirds.
It was funny that when they were riding in the back of the truck eating ice cream, Jonah spilled some and then dropped it and she started muttering a few of Grandpa's curses.
I like that Hank often ate dinner when he did chores during the week.
Hank told them his uncle beats his aunt, and it was funny how Rachel said she ought to hit him back. Her mom said that wouldn't solve anything, and Grandpa and Rachel shared a look. "We weren't passive sufferers like Mama." Rachel said if she hit him it would solve things and Grandpa laughed, saying it's the Chance in her talking.
In town one day Hank was loading sacks into the back of the truck, and Maysie was watching signs being put up for the revival, about praying and repenting. Maysie came up and asked if she was going to it, and that her mom ought to go. Rachel said she couldn't because her and Hank had plans! On the ride back she rode between Grandpa and Hank.
I hate hearing about the crazy, controlling, insane parts of religion and that's how Billy Bong the revivalist was. He had people rolling around on the floor, and condemned the movie theater because a movie had a witch in it, so his followers burned the theater down. I was disappointed in Hank because he wanted to go hear him, and so did Rachel. Grandpa sent them into town to get lumber and I expected so much more than what happened. They went to see that insane preacher and that was it. What a waste!
Pastor Woodie called Jonah a dummy and said he ought to be sent to an institution. He wanted someone from the county to take Rider away and for Rachel to be sent to an orphanage. I applauded Grandpa for threatening to shoot him the next time he came around. He had Hank go get his gun and he brought it up to shoot and the Pastor tore out of the driveway.
One morning the field was on fire and Grandpa and Rachel had to go out and move the cows out. While they were outside, men came and hit Jonah repeatedly until he let go of Rider and they stole him. Jonah saw Pastor Woodie in the car but the police chief wouldn't believe Jonah, thought he was making the whole thing up because he'd lost Rider and was trying to save his own skin. It ticked me off so much that the pastor and his flunkies thought illegitimate children shouldn't stay with their families and that they could take matters into their own hands and kidnap a child from its mother. Who does that?
Her mom felt like God was punishing her and Annie explained that if her mom admitted that she couldn't have prevented it then she'd feel helpless. It was a strong line that she said people are afraid of admitting that they can't control everything so they feel guilty and believe God who grants favors but with terrible sacrifices.
Annie read the tea leaves in the bottom of Rachel's glass to tell her future. Rachel asked Annie if they would get Rider back and she told her not to ask something like that because she knew her fortune telling is half fake.
Grandpa started writing letters, to the county council, then the governor, and then President Roosevelt. But then Hank's aunt kept causing trouble after she killed her husband, after he'd beaten her bad enough to put her in the hospital. She went around shooting places he frequented, his bar, and then the lawyer and police chief's place.
It was funny when the social workers were talking to Rachel and Hank busted in the door yelling for her to get out here because she said she'd be right back. One of the women asked Grandpa if he lets her spend mind time with Hank in the barn!
I didn't like the argument she had with Hank in the barn where she yelled at him and said how dumb he was and a coward because he believed there was no way to win when you cared about someone.
It was a strong line when Rachel promised Rider's picture that she was going to find him and bring him back, and said Sis is coming.
This was a time of racism and crazy religion, working more like criminals, inciting followers to do bad.
Rachel had found letters in her mom's room addressed to Billy Bong's sister, and the pieces fell into place for her. She's been told that the woman was barren and hadn't had any kids, so she knew that's who Rider was with. She planned to talk her grandpa into coming with her so they could steal Rider back. Annie said she was young to be doing all this, and Rachel said she learned about a king who was her age and led an army into battle. She said "Nothing ever happens that we don't make happen."
Hank started coming over more, even when there wasn't work to do. Even though Rachel spent more time outside, they didn't talk. But one day he was sitting on the fence and she went up and asked why he was there. She knew it was because his home life was bad. And she asked why he brought food because they always feed him and he said she had enough people to feed. I was hoping for something, but nope. He left and that was it.
I expected grandpa to be on board to get Rider back but he was mad, told Rachel to leave it to the grownups. Rachel got mad and said she's sick of waiting for someone to pay attention to his letters and her mom's crying. "Nobody is going to help us except us!" There was one strong character!
And he didn't believe that Billy's sister had Rider because the police chief said she didn't. Since when does he believe that lying, careless loser?
The night before Rachel and Grandpa were to go find Rider, Hank's dad banged on the door demanding to see Hank. He was sure Hank was hiding out in their barn but they hadn't seen him.
Her mom said it doesn't seem to matter what's right, only what people can get away from. Rachel said "And you just watch what Grandpa and I are going to get away with."
Rachel couldn't stop thinking about Hank being out in the barn, and she got up and went out there and I was so excited! But then it was Betty Dean, Hank's aunt who killed her abusive husband, had been staying in their barn. Rachel prayed for his safety, and then it had to be ruined as she wondered if he was staying with Maysie. Wth?
I really hated that the summary gave away that Annie and Hank came along on the journey because that would have been a nice surprise.
The radiator boiled over and they had to stop and fill jugs of water at a creek. Hank had taken his shirt off because it was so hot, and when she came back to help him at the creek, he had sweat on his chest grinned at her. I didn't understand her desire to slap him for "being an arrogant caveman." Her tendency to want to hit was a problem. He's shirtless, enjoy it and don't be a prude.
As she was going back up the hill she fell and scraped herself up and I liked how his face was white as he asked if she was alright. She'd torn her clothes and he said who cared about your clothes and asked if her legs were broken or not. I couldn't wait to see where it went, but then Hank got mad at her and said she'd done enough stupid things.
Annie couldn't believe Grandpa didn't have any money for Rachel to wear new clothes, and commented that it was to cover her nakedness and Hank grinned at her. Annie bought her a skirt and blouse and she expected Hank to tease her but he didn't say anything. I wanted more of a reaction!
They stopped at a gas station and Hank told her to hurry up and wash up if she was going to. She told him she was clean enough but that he looked like he'd been digging and he blushed. I hated all the sparring and wish they'd get along.
When they were riding in the bed of the truck, he told her to stop thinking about the ways they could fail and she asked how he knew what she was thinking. He said he always knows. She started noticing how tan he was and his long hair and fingers. He felt her looking at him and looked over, and they both blushed. She said he didn't know she she's thinking and he said "Don't you wish I didn't" and laughed. She tried to slap him but he caught her hand and told her to act like a girl for once because she's wearing a skirt. She told him she hated him and he said he knew, and his eyes were smiling. And Rachel wanted to throw her arms around him, and kiss him better than Maysie had. Quit bringing her up! She yelled that he didn't know anything and he shrugged and grinned.
When I was thoroughly sick of the car ride and the radiator boiling over and stopping for gas and eating, they came up on a wreck. I couldn't have cared less and could not fathom why she chose to derail their plans. I couldn't wait for them to snatch Rider back and I was so irritated by the dead bodies hanging out of the cars and faces crushed in and everything else. But I did like that when Rachel went down the road and cried, Hank had come up behind her, to be there in case there was a rattlesnake. He was embarrassed to be caught crying too.
It was a good indicator of time when Annie mentioned that the Lindbergh son was killed and being rich didn't help them, when Rachel was despairing of being poor.
At a gas station Hank and Grandpa were at the truck and Annie was inside, and Rachel was standing by herself when two guys came up and started messing with her. One grabbed her arm and she hit him in the face. They pulled her into the truck and then Hank came up and hit one in the head with a rock, knocking him out. He said he'd kill him next and said to leave before he finished the job, and pulled Rachel out. I didn't understand why she shook Hank's hand loose from hers afterward.
That night she got up once the others were sleeping, intent on striking out and getting Rider herself and not waiting on the truck to be fixed. I liked that Hank grabbed her ankle and told her it was too dangerous to hitchhike for a girl.
I thought it would happen then, that something would be said or done. He was advising her to walk facing traffic because that's safer and that were other guys like that, and to carry a rock because no one has better aim than her. She told him she was counting on him to find them, and he told her he'll find her, no matter where her is. They didn't even hug or touch or anything! What a waste!
The summary had spoiled that she meets Rider's dad on the journey, but I didn't expect it to happen the way it did. She recognized the bus of the man who had helped them with the tire, but someone called her name and it was Rider's dad. What are the chances she caught up to the bus of the man who'd helped them before, much less that Rider's dad was one of the workers on the bus? Too crazy.
My stomach actually dropped as I read about Rachel at the revival, seeing Rider with the woman. It was so clever of her to put a dollar in the offering plate at the same time that she took out a 5.
Annie had dreamed that the woman named Rider after the baby she'd lost, and I LOVED that Rachel used that against her. She followed them home and when she let out Rider out in the backyard, Rachel grabbed him but was seen. She asked how her dead boy would feel that she'd named another boy after him, and that she's going to hell, threatened to tell about what her and her brother did, so the woman let her go.
On the way back, it was sweet how the bus dropped Rider's dad off on the road and he saw her and said she'd scared him to death and they'd gone up and down every road nearby looking for her. He learned that Rider was his son and said they could both call him dad.
As they walked back, Hank came up behind them in the truck and he jumped out with the engine still running, asking who the man was. And then he asked if she was alright, how long she'd been walking and if she had any trouble. I loved it!
I was SO freaking irritated with the ending. I noticed it was running out of pages and nearing the end and that there wouldn't be time to finish it. And that's exactly what happened. They stopped by saying that Hank left them and went out east like he'd wanted to to find work. They didn't see him for 5 years until the war ended! WTF?! He came back for her and it ended with them at some point much later when she was writing this "manuscript" and he said she left out that she'd let him kiss her the night she left to get Rider. What the $*#@! WHY would you freaking leave out that they'd kissed that night? How can you not mention something like that? No details, no mention of it like we hadn't spent the whole book waiting for it!
I had held out hope that he'd say he hadn't really kissed Maysie and had just lied to make her jealous. But that wasn't the case because even a kid's book has to have other girl drama.
She told him the story wasn't about them and he said every story is about them. Pretty romantic for a guy who was pretty much a jerk to her.
I was SO pissed off that she didn't share that they'd kissed, super pissed. And she couldn't even write the reunion with Rider and his mom. We wait the whole book for them to bring Rider home, and the author leaves it out. Why/how can you do this to readers? Why would you write the ending like this? I HATE unfinished endings. We don't know anything about their lives and I hate filling in blanks and guessing what happens.
I wouldn’t ever read this again. It’s just too old and that style of writing doesn’t hold up to today. That ending is crap and I can’t even talk about it, it was so maddening and infuriating that she thought that was a fitting end.
It's set in 1940 in Washington state during WWII which the summary didn't share. Rachel was looking back on that summer, when her brother Rider was stolen and she turned 15 four weeks later. I was interested in this book because of the mention of the hired hand. And it didn't take long. She was having her birthday party and Grandpa had invited Hank, who's 16, who wouldn't have been there otherwise because he and Rachel despised each other. I love the enemies relationship! He gave her a dollar bill in a homemade card, which was a lot of money at that time.
I've read books similar to this, written around this time, (1990) and it has the same colorful writing and country talk and sayings.
"You made so much racket that the cow dried up and the chickens quit laying."
"Mike Webster was behind the door when the brains were passed out, but he could remember a lump on the skull if you gave him one that was big enough."
"I was only trying out the idea to see how that man took to it."
The language in here is terrible, I mean awful, and repeatedly so. She used the word retard and GD 7 times. The pastor used the word bastard and the n word. Also, plenty of racism which existed at this time, because the pastor said there's a colored person working at the soda fountain where her mom was, and he asked Grandpa if he wanted his son's widow with an n word. Druid Annie said sumbitch twice. A social worker called Jonah the retarded boy.
Rachel's dad died 7 years earlier and her mom was gone working and one day a man brought her back home, then she turned up pregnant and had a baby with the same color eyes and eyelashes as that man. People in town would say how pretty Rider was but it's too bad he's illegitimate. The pastor came when Rider was a baby and said there were two bastards in the house, meaning her mentally challenged cousin, Jonah, whose dad had died, and Rider. He also said it's no place for a girl and the baby. He had said Jonah's birth defects were a punishment from God. Definitely religion at its worst, or people's misinterpretations of religion at its worst. There were so many things to be upset about, and I can't stand pastors who preach this bigotry, discrimination, racism, and brimstone and hellfire crap. Even worse, Pastor Woodie ran a bordello. I couldn’t stand this kind of hypocrisy and corruption.
Hank comes after school and on the weekends to help out around the house. I was enjoying the moment when one say at school she got there late and went to sit behind Hank. He turned and grinned at her, and she told him to turn around and poked him with her pencil. He said he bet she didn't rake the chicken house and her grandpa made her do it this morning. She told him she'd done it last night and he didn't believe her, said sure you did and said he'd have to do it Saturday and told her she's as lazy as Banjo, her dog.
And then I got severely ticked off as the mean girl came into the story, Maysie. Hank liked her and of course she had boobs, though they were described as "hard-looking." Not sure what that means, but of course she unbuttons the top buttons on her shirts and boys follow her home, while Rachel wears baggy, conservative clothes. I was pissed off when Rachel said that one day when Rider was working in the barn he told her that he'd kissed Maysie. She hit him with the shovel and he stopped telling her things. She wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him or anyone else. I can't get away from this even in kid's books. I hoped she'd kiss someone else first but since girls don't get that chance, I seriously doubted it.
It was interesting when Grandpa said about Druid Annie: "Her folks came from Wales. The Welsh see trouble in every shadow and hear it in the wind. That's because they had legends instead of laws. Americans put our faith in laws instead of old tales about spirits living at the bottom of lakes and fortunetellers in caves. We don't believe in spooks..."
One day they'd gone to town and Grandpa told Hank to come and help him the kids in line. Jonah had taken Rider's hand, and Hank had held out his hand to Rachel, grinned, and asked if she needed help. I like Rachel's spunk. She thought she was a true Chance woman, not a lady like her mom, so she hit his arm hard and told him to help Maysie. I felt so bad for her because she'd never forgotten or forgiven him for telling her he'd kissed Maysie.
His family pressured him to work full-time but he wanted to finish school. Her grandpa offered to let him stay in the barn storeroom if his parents got too bad. His family was full of drunks and jailbirds.
It was funny that when they were riding in the back of the truck eating ice cream, Jonah spilled some and then dropped it and she started muttering a few of Grandpa's curses.
I like that Hank often ate dinner when he did chores during the week.
Hank told them his uncle beats his aunt, and it was funny how Rachel said she ought to hit him back. Her mom said that wouldn't solve anything, and Grandpa and Rachel shared a look. "We weren't passive sufferers like Mama." Rachel said if she hit him it would solve things and Grandpa laughed, saying it's the Chance in her talking.
In town one day Hank was loading sacks into the back of the truck, and Maysie was watching signs being put up for the revival, about praying and repenting. Maysie came up and asked if she was going to it, and that her mom ought to go. Rachel said she couldn't because her and Hank had plans! On the ride back she rode between Grandpa and Hank.
I hate hearing about the crazy, controlling, insane parts of religion and that's how Billy Bong the revivalist was. He had people rolling around on the floor, and condemned the movie theater because a movie had a witch in it, so his followers burned the theater down. I was disappointed in Hank because he wanted to go hear him, and so did Rachel. Grandpa sent them into town to get lumber and I expected so much more than what happened. They went to see that insane preacher and that was it. What a waste!
Pastor Woodie called Jonah a dummy and said he ought to be sent to an institution. He wanted someone from the county to take Rider away and for Rachel to be sent to an orphanage. I applauded Grandpa for threatening to shoot him the next time he came around. He had Hank go get his gun and he brought it up to shoot and the Pastor tore out of the driveway.
One morning the field was on fire and Grandpa and Rachel had to go out and move the cows out. While they were outside, men came and hit Jonah repeatedly until he let go of Rider and they stole him. Jonah saw Pastor Woodie in the car but the police chief wouldn't believe Jonah, thought he was making the whole thing up because he'd lost Rider and was trying to save his own skin. It ticked me off so much that the pastor and his flunkies thought illegitimate children shouldn't stay with their families and that they could take matters into their own hands and kidnap a child from its mother. Who does that?
Her mom felt like God was punishing her and Annie explained that if her mom admitted that she couldn't have prevented it then she'd feel helpless. It was a strong line that she said people are afraid of admitting that they can't control everything so they feel guilty and believe God who grants favors but with terrible sacrifices.
Annie read the tea leaves in the bottom of Rachel's glass to tell her future. Rachel asked Annie if they would get Rider back and she told her not to ask something like that because she knew her fortune telling is half fake.
Grandpa started writing letters, to the county council, then the governor, and then President Roosevelt. But then Hank's aunt kept causing trouble after she killed her husband, after he'd beaten her bad enough to put her in the hospital. She went around shooting places he frequented, his bar, and then the lawyer and police chief's place.
It was funny when the social workers were talking to Rachel and Hank busted in the door yelling for her to get out here because she said she'd be right back. One of the women asked Grandpa if he lets her spend mind time with Hank in the barn!
I didn't like the argument she had with Hank in the barn where she yelled at him and said how dumb he was and a coward because he believed there was no way to win when you cared about someone.
It was a strong line when Rachel promised Rider's picture that she was going to find him and bring him back, and said Sis is coming.
This was a time of racism and crazy religion, working more like criminals, inciting followers to do bad.
Rachel had found letters in her mom's room addressed to Billy Bong's sister, and the pieces fell into place for her. She's been told that the woman was barren and hadn't had any kids, so she knew that's who Rider was with. She planned to talk her grandpa into coming with her so they could steal Rider back. Annie said she was young to be doing all this, and Rachel said she learned about a king who was her age and led an army into battle. She said "Nothing ever happens that we don't make happen."
Hank started coming over more, even when there wasn't work to do. Even though Rachel spent more time outside, they didn't talk. But one day he was sitting on the fence and she went up and asked why he was there. She knew it was because his home life was bad. And she asked why he brought food because they always feed him and he said she had enough people to feed. I was hoping for something, but nope. He left and that was it.
I expected grandpa to be on board to get Rider back but he was mad, told Rachel to leave it to the grownups. Rachel got mad and said she's sick of waiting for someone to pay attention to his letters and her mom's crying. "Nobody is going to help us except us!" There was one strong character!
And he didn't believe that Billy's sister had Rider because the police chief said she didn't. Since when does he believe that lying, careless loser?
The night before Rachel and Grandpa were to go find Rider, Hank's dad banged on the door demanding to see Hank. He was sure Hank was hiding out in their barn but they hadn't seen him.
Her mom said it doesn't seem to matter what's right, only what people can get away from. Rachel said "And you just watch what Grandpa and I are going to get away with."
Rachel couldn't stop thinking about Hank being out in the barn, and she got up and went out there and I was so excited! But then it was Betty Dean, Hank's aunt who killed her abusive husband, had been staying in their barn. Rachel prayed for his safety, and then it had to be ruined as she wondered if he was staying with Maysie. Wth?
I really hated that the summary gave away that Annie and Hank came along on the journey because that would have been a nice surprise.
The radiator boiled over and they had to stop and fill jugs of water at a creek. Hank had taken his shirt off because it was so hot, and when she came back to help him at the creek, he had sweat on his chest grinned at her. I didn't understand her desire to slap him for "being an arrogant caveman." Her tendency to want to hit was a problem. He's shirtless, enjoy it and don't be a prude.
As she was going back up the hill she fell and scraped herself up and I liked how his face was white as he asked if she was alright. She'd torn her clothes and he said who cared about your clothes and asked if her legs were broken or not. I couldn't wait to see where it went, but then Hank got mad at her and said she'd done enough stupid things.
Annie couldn't believe Grandpa didn't have any money for Rachel to wear new clothes, and commented that it was to cover her nakedness and Hank grinned at her. Annie bought her a skirt and blouse and she expected Hank to tease her but he didn't say anything. I wanted more of a reaction!
They stopped at a gas station and Hank told her to hurry up and wash up if she was going to. She told him she was clean enough but that he looked like he'd been digging and he blushed. I hated all the sparring and wish they'd get along.
When they were riding in the bed of the truck, he told her to stop thinking about the ways they could fail and she asked how he knew what she was thinking. He said he always knows. She started noticing how tan he was and his long hair and fingers. He felt her looking at him and looked over, and they both blushed. She said he didn't know she she's thinking and he said "Don't you wish I didn't" and laughed. She tried to slap him but he caught her hand and told her to act like a girl for once because she's wearing a skirt. She told him she hated him and he said he knew, and his eyes were smiling. And Rachel wanted to throw her arms around him, and kiss him better than Maysie had. Quit bringing her up! She yelled that he didn't know anything and he shrugged and grinned.
When I was thoroughly sick of the car ride and the radiator boiling over and stopping for gas and eating, they came up on a wreck. I couldn't have cared less and could not fathom why she chose to derail their plans. I couldn't wait for them to snatch Rider back and I was so irritated by the dead bodies hanging out of the cars and faces crushed in and everything else. But I did like that when Rachel went down the road and cried, Hank had come up behind her, to be there in case there was a rattlesnake. He was embarrassed to be caught crying too.
It was a good indicator of time when Annie mentioned that the Lindbergh son was killed and being rich didn't help them, when Rachel was despairing of being poor.
At a gas station Hank and Grandpa were at the truck and Annie was inside, and Rachel was standing by herself when two guys came up and started messing with her. One grabbed her arm and she hit him in the face. They pulled her into the truck and then Hank came up and hit one in the head with a rock, knocking him out. He said he'd kill him next and said to leave before he finished the job, and pulled Rachel out. I didn't understand why she shook Hank's hand loose from hers afterward.
That night she got up once the others were sleeping, intent on striking out and getting Rider herself and not waiting on the truck to be fixed. I liked that Hank grabbed her ankle and told her it was too dangerous to hitchhike for a girl.
I thought it would happen then, that something would be said or done. He was advising her to walk facing traffic because that's safer and that were other guys like that, and to carry a rock because no one has better aim than her. She told him she was counting on him to find them, and he told her he'll find her, no matter where her is. They didn't even hug or touch or anything! What a waste!
The summary had spoiled that she meets Rider's dad on the journey, but I didn't expect it to happen the way it did. She recognized the bus of the man who had helped them with the tire, but someone called her name and it was Rider's dad. What are the chances she caught up to the bus of the man who'd helped them before, much less that Rider's dad was one of the workers on the bus? Too crazy.
My stomach actually dropped as I read about Rachel at the revival, seeing Rider with the woman. It was so clever of her to put a dollar in the offering plate at the same time that she took out a 5.
Annie had dreamed that the woman named Rider after the baby she'd lost, and I LOVED that Rachel used that against her. She followed them home and when she let out Rider out in the backyard, Rachel grabbed him but was seen. She asked how her dead boy would feel that she'd named another boy after him, and that she's going to hell, threatened to tell about what her and her brother did, so the woman let her go.
On the way back, it was sweet how the bus dropped Rider's dad off on the road and he saw her and said she'd scared him to death and they'd gone up and down every road nearby looking for her. He learned that Rider was his son and said they could both call him dad.
As they walked back, Hank came up behind them in the truck and he jumped out with the engine still running, asking who the man was. And then he asked if she was alright, how long she'd been walking and if she had any trouble. I loved it!
I was SO freaking irritated with the ending. I noticed it was running out of pages and nearing the end and that there wouldn't be time to finish it. And that's exactly what happened. They stopped by saying that Hank left them and went out east like he'd wanted to to find work. They didn't see him for 5 years until the war ended! WTF?! He came back for her and it ended with them at some point much later when she was writing this "manuscript" and he said she left out that she'd let him kiss her the night she left to get Rider. What the $*#@! WHY would you freaking leave out that they'd kissed that night? How can you not mention something like that? No details, no mention of it like we hadn't spent the whole book waiting for it!
I had held out hope that he'd say he hadn't really kissed Maysie and had just lied to make her jealous. But that wasn't the case because even a kid's book has to have other girl drama.
She told him the story wasn't about them and he said every story is about them. Pretty romantic for a guy who was pretty much a jerk to her.
I was SO pissed off that she didn't share that they'd kissed, super pissed. And she couldn't even write the reunion with Rider and his mom. We wait the whole book for them to bring Rider home, and the author leaves it out. Why/how can you do this to readers? Why would you write the ending like this? I HATE unfinished endings. We don't know anything about their lives and I hate filling in blanks and guessing what happens.
I wouldn’t ever read this again. It’s just too old and that style of writing doesn’t hold up to today. That ending is crap and I can’t even talk about it, it was so maddening and infuriating that she thought that was a fitting end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2018
The first time I read this book was when I was 10. It was my favorite book for a long time. A quick read with an okay plot that I really felt took longer to finish when I was younger, but I was 10.
Read
April 3, 2010A story set in 1930's rural Washington. Rachel knows that everyone in town thinks her family is crazy, but she isn't prepared for how little they care when her younger illegitmate half brother is kidnapped, and knows it's up to her to get him back.
I got a laugh out of the antics of her family and it exposed the power of judgement in a small town, as well as hinted at the realities of the Depression. I cheered on Rachel's courage and strength.
To find out what happens to Rachel, read Jean Thesman's Molly Donnelly.
I got a laugh out of the antics of her family and it exposed the power of judgement in a small town, as well as hinted at the realities of the Depression. I cheered on Rachel's courage and strength.
To find out what happens to Rachel, read Jean Thesman's Molly Donnelly.
August 13, 2025
Another Throwback.
The verdict: Still loved it!
When her special-needs brother is kidnapped by a cult leader, tweenage Rachel embarks on a quest to take him back. She is joined by her feisty grandfather and Hank, the local farm boy who she hates SO much you just know they'll end up together in the end.
This one is short, but there's a ton of character development. I adored Grandfather. He came across as slightly unhinged and the scenes with him were hilarious (). And there's some great banter between Rachel and Hank.
As for our heroine: I wouldn't want to piss her off, because when she gets it in her mind to go after you, she doesn't stop until she's succeeded.
I had fun revisiting this one and I'm happy to report I still like it just as much as I did as a tween.
The verdict: Still loved it!
When her special-needs brother is kidnapped by a cult leader, tweenage Rachel embarks on a quest to take him back. She is joined by her feisty grandfather and Hank, the local farm boy who she hates SO much you just know they'll end up together in the end.
This one is short, but there's a ton of character development. I adored Grandfather. He came across as slightly unhinged and the scenes with him were hilarious (). And there's some great banter between Rachel and Hank.
As for our heroine: I wouldn't want to piss her off, because when she gets it in her mind to go after you, she doesn't stop until she's succeeded.
I had fun revisiting this one and I'm happy to report I still like it just as much as I did as a tween.
August 24, 2014
Read this book again and still love it. It has some language which makes it questionable for a read aloud, however its a book i want to share with y children and with some of my upper level classes.
July 24, 2014
I read this book MANY years ago when I was a young teenager. I remember it fondly to this day, which should say something about how good it is.
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