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World of Adventure #1
The Legend of Red Horse Cavern
Deep in the damp, dark caverns of the Sacramento Mountains, Will "Little Bear" Tucker and his friend Sarah Thompson discover the secret of an ancient Apache legend. But armed bandits are after them. A headless Indian brave haunts them. And when they lose their way, they may not escape the eerie underground maze alive.
55 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
11 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Gary Paulsen
409 books3,986 followersGary James Paulsen was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction, best known for coming-of-age stories about the wilderness. He was the author of more than 200 books and wrote more than 200 magazine articles and short stories, and several plays, all primarily for teenagers. He won the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 1997 for his lifetime contribution in writing for teens.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 9, 2022
Why did Gary Paulsen write the long-running World of Adventure book series, which debuted in 1994? The reason is hinted at in the introduction to this first volume. As a frequent speaker at schools over the years, Paulsen heard a common clamor from young readers for books that cut to the chase, offering thrills without a long, complex plot. That's what we get in The Legend of Red Horse Cavern. Young Will Tucker is only half Apache, but at heart he's an Indian warrior. He loves exploring caves in the Sacramento Mountains where the Apache had many adventures, but his friend, Sarah Thompson, reminds Will that the age of warriors is over. He knows that, but would love to find the cave where the ghost of an Apache warrior named Red Horse is said to dwell. Legend has it that Red Horse betrayed his people generations ago by stealing a golden statue from them. If Will and Sarah locate Red Horse's remains, would they also find the statue? It's exciting to think about.
When Will and Sarah find a new passage in a familiar cave, they follow it in hopes of stumbling onto the room where Red Horse died. But they encounter a pair of bandits who hijacked an armored truck shipment a few days ago. "Shorty" and "Scarface" are armed with guns and intend to kill Will and Sarah so they can't alert the police to their whereabouts. The time has come for Will to occupy his fantasy of being a warrior, but is he up to the task in real life?
Getting lost in the winding cave system or waylaid by Shorty and Scarface are immediate threats, but Will has the heart of an Apache. He won't let these criminals kill his friend, and he won't go down without a fight. As Shorty and Scarface pursue him through the caves, Will wonders what would happen if they ran into if Red Horse's ghost. Would he be on Will's side, or that of the bad guys? Does the long-dead Apache warrior want to atone for past misdeeds? One way would be to help Will and Sarah survive this ordeal, but time is running out.
The Legend of Red Horse Cavern lacks narrative depth and emotional complexity, but that's by design. The point of the story? Whatever your age or background, a bona fide adventure can happen to you at any time. Excitement and high stakes may be just around the next corner, but be careful what you wish for. The stress of life-or-death action isn't easy, as Will learns when he's plunged into a scenario like the ones he fantasizes about. For many of us, the best place to have an adventure is the pages of a book. I'd rate The Legend of Red Horse Cavern one and a half stars, but I'll round to two, and I'm eager for the next episode. I can envision Gary Paulsen doing good things with this series.
When Will and Sarah find a new passage in a familiar cave, they follow it in hopes of stumbling onto the room where Red Horse died. But they encounter a pair of bandits who hijacked an armored truck shipment a few days ago. "Shorty" and "Scarface" are armed with guns and intend to kill Will and Sarah so they can't alert the police to their whereabouts. The time has come for Will to occupy his fantasy of being a warrior, but is he up to the task in real life?
Getting lost in the winding cave system or waylaid by Shorty and Scarface are immediate threats, but Will has the heart of an Apache. He won't let these criminals kill his friend, and he won't go down without a fight. As Shorty and Scarface pursue him through the caves, Will wonders what would happen if they ran into if Red Horse's ghost. Would he be on Will's side, or that of the bad guys? Does the long-dead Apache warrior want to atone for past misdeeds? One way would be to help Will and Sarah survive this ordeal, but time is running out.
The Legend of Red Horse Cavern lacks narrative depth and emotional complexity, but that's by design. The point of the story? Whatever your age or background, a bona fide adventure can happen to you at any time. Excitement and high stakes may be just around the next corner, but be careful what you wish for. The stress of life-or-death action isn't easy, as Will learns when he's plunged into a scenario like the ones he fantasizes about. For many of us, the best place to have an adventure is the pages of a book. I'd rate The Legend of Red Horse Cavern one and a half stars, but I'll round to two, and I'm eager for the next episode. I can envision Gary Paulsen doing good things with this series.
March 20, 2024
Read that Paulson wrote this because children wanted quicker stories without all the details. That’s what you get here. One plot point. Good for a short story. But giving it a two instead of three because that.
August 22, 2013
I had read another book, "Danger on Midnight River", in this series. It is a series in the sense that the books each have a different adventure with different characters.
One of the nice features of this series is that Paulsen includes practical tips on what to do in case of emergencies in the wild. This book, which involved being in a cave, included an endnote page about spelunking and how to prepare for it.
The story involves an old Native American legend and includes Native American characters. Two kids going on an adventure into a cave encounter two armored-truck robbers. The action is realistic and does not minimize the dangers to the children, who suffer significant injuries throughout the tale. I appreciated this de-glorification of adventure and fighting bad guys as an enterprise with no risk or consequences, although it seemed strikingly brutal in places for a book for young readers.
The book mentions that within this cave there are "bottomless pits". This made me wonder, are there such things as "bottomless pits" in real life? I mean, where literally there is no bottom. Or is the term used colloquially to mean a pit where the bottom cannot be seen and may be hundreds of feet deep?
The resolution is good. I like Paulsen's writing. One of the most affecting works which I have read by this author was one of his autobiographical books, "Eastern Sun, Western Moon".
One of the nice features of this series is that Paulsen includes practical tips on what to do in case of emergencies in the wild. This book, which involved being in a cave, included an endnote page about spelunking and how to prepare for it.
The story involves an old Native American legend and includes Native American characters. Two kids going on an adventure into a cave encounter two armored-truck robbers. The action is realistic and does not minimize the dangers to the children, who suffer significant injuries throughout the tale. I appreciated this de-glorification of adventure and fighting bad guys as an enterprise with no risk or consequences, although it seemed strikingly brutal in places for a book for young readers.
The book mentions that within this cave there are "bottomless pits". This made me wonder, are there such things as "bottomless pits" in real life? I mean, where literally there is no bottom. Or is the term used colloquially to mean a pit where the bottom cannot be seen and may be hundreds of feet deep?
The resolution is good. I like Paulsen's writing. One of the most affecting works which I have read by this author was one of his autobiographical books, "Eastern Sun, Western Moon".
July 30, 2019
I've never read Gary Paulsen before but it was cool how in the note to readers he said he's competed in the Iditarod and wanted to write action-packed books based on what kids told him they wanted.
This is about William Little Bear Tucker, half Apache, and Sarah Thompson. His grandpa had told them about a legend in which the tribe was experiencing a drought and Old Man told them to take their gold and melt it into a statue. A white man heard about it--somehow--and wanted to steal it, was aided by a betraying Apache man. The men of the tribe went after them but all they found were their dead bodies, the Apache decapitated and the statue gone. Sarah's mom didn't want her outside because a money truck was stolen from.
They were out exploring caves and found a chest, didn't even try to open it which I couldn't believe. They were going to leave it there because it wasn't going anywhere. They made plans to come back because they had to get home for supper. As they were leaving these bad guys came up and threatened to shoot them. I couldn't understand why because the kids hadn't seen anything and hadn't tried to take the chest. What was their motive? Just let them leave and then move the chest. Zero sense. But Sarah smartly threw dirt in their eyes, allowing Will to escape.
One man went after Will and said he'd shoot Sarah if Will went to the cops. Will waited a long time and then had a plan. He snuck back in for Sarah, having a bottle that he used as a fuse to throw at the bad guy. Together they ran deeper into the cave. I thought they would have tried to run home...
Of course the bad guys divulged their entire plan in front of Sarah, as bad guys are won't to do. They robbed the armored truck, stole almost $1 million and were going to Mexico.
While going from one passage to another, Sarah found a human skull on the ground after she'd touched it in the dark. No cave story is complete without a skeleton. It was like The Goonies except not a quarter as cool.
It was ridiculous that the golden statue was inside the skull. How did it get there? Who put the figure inside the head after it had decomposed and emptied out??
Will had been careful to take only left turns in the cave, so on the way out he started taking right turns. They realized they were lost despite that and Sarah thought it was because they took the statue and Red Horse was mad at them. But when Will almost fell into a hole and didn't, he thought the opposite, that Red Horse was helping them to restore his honor. It was all so ridiculous to me.
Will followed one of the bad guys to see where the other exit out of the caves was. All Sarah had to do was wait and stay still, except she couldn't managed that. Of course she had to wander closer to the other guy, the statue falling out of her pocket and making a noise. So there she was, captured again. It was up to Will to save the day. Please portray the heroine as someone who follows the boy, lets him lead everything, and then gets in trouble and needs rescuing. It's one large step forward.
Will led the man toward him, stretched out rope across the path to trip him and cause him to fall in a pit. The man held on and grabbed Will's shoe, trying to take him down with him. Will kicked him and the shoe came loose and the man fell to his death.
Murder is scary in a kid's book. But Will didn't mind killing someone. He knew he should feel bad but he didn't. Imagine a kid having this thought! Obviously, he wasn't going to help the man who wanted to kill him and Sarah, but don't have him nonchalant about murder.
The remaining man was planning to take the money and Sarah to Mexico, because for some reason he needed her...Yeah, I still don't get that. Will made spooky noises, enough to distract him and enable Sarah to kick him and give them enough time to get away. They escaped through the ceiling trap door and met cops outside. The story wasn't over as they told his grandpa that the man had gotten away by climbing down the rope, only to have cops catch him on the other side. Don't know why he couldn't have just been apprehended in the first place but this does have to be as dramatic as it can get.
Sarah apologized for not being able to show the grandpa the statue and that sucked. He should have seen it. But he did say it's better this way because it belongs in the cave. He still should have seen it, the evidence that his story was true.
An agent from the truck company where the money was stolen offered them $1,000 as a reward. He asked if they knew the other man who had helped the deputies by blocking the criminal's escape from the cave. He wore an "ancient Indian costume." It shouldn't be called costume, but outfit since they weren't dressing up.
Will asked his grandpa if it could really be the Apache from the legend and he said it was their way that when you look at something with your eyes it might seem impossible but when you look with your heart everything is possible.
It ended suddenly and I found the story to be really incomplete. There was no intro to the characters or their lives, no descriptions of what anyone looked like or how old they were. He deposited us right in the middle of a story and then ended it just as quickly as it started. The writing wasn't great. He would switch to the bad guys' POV with no warning and then just as quickly change back to the MCs in a really clunky way. Despite there being male and female leads who are friends, there wasn't anything in that department which I had hoped for. She held into his shirt as he walked to stay by him, and they grabbed each other's arm and hand as they fled, and the bad guys called them boyfriend and girlfriend but there was nothing of the sort. A letdown.
It's nothing you haven't seen done before a million times. It's a cookie-cutter story with a run-of-the-mill plot and bad guys. I don't feel the need to read this author again.
This is about William Little Bear Tucker, half Apache, and Sarah Thompson. His grandpa had told them about a legend in which the tribe was experiencing a drought and Old Man told them to take their gold and melt it into a statue. A white man heard about it--somehow--and wanted to steal it, was aided by a betraying Apache man. The men of the tribe went after them but all they found were their dead bodies, the Apache decapitated and the statue gone. Sarah's mom didn't want her outside because a money truck was stolen from.
They were out exploring caves and found a chest, didn't even try to open it which I couldn't believe. They were going to leave it there because it wasn't going anywhere. They made plans to come back because they had to get home for supper. As they were leaving these bad guys came up and threatened to shoot them. I couldn't understand why because the kids hadn't seen anything and hadn't tried to take the chest. What was their motive? Just let them leave and then move the chest. Zero sense. But Sarah smartly threw dirt in their eyes, allowing Will to escape.
One man went after Will and said he'd shoot Sarah if Will went to the cops. Will waited a long time and then had a plan. He snuck back in for Sarah, having a bottle that he used as a fuse to throw at the bad guy. Together they ran deeper into the cave. I thought they would have tried to run home...
Of course the bad guys divulged their entire plan in front of Sarah, as bad guys are won't to do. They robbed the armored truck, stole almost $1 million and were going to Mexico.
While going from one passage to another, Sarah found a human skull on the ground after she'd touched it in the dark. No cave story is complete without a skeleton. It was like The Goonies except not a quarter as cool.
It was ridiculous that the golden statue was inside the skull. How did it get there? Who put the figure inside the head after it had decomposed and emptied out??
Will had been careful to take only left turns in the cave, so on the way out he started taking right turns. They realized they were lost despite that and Sarah thought it was because they took the statue and Red Horse was mad at them. But when Will almost fell into a hole and didn't, he thought the opposite, that Red Horse was helping them to restore his honor. It was all so ridiculous to me.
Will followed one of the bad guys to see where the other exit out of the caves was. All Sarah had to do was wait and stay still, except she couldn't managed that. Of course she had to wander closer to the other guy, the statue falling out of her pocket and making a noise. So there she was, captured again. It was up to Will to save the day. Please portray the heroine as someone who follows the boy, lets him lead everything, and then gets in trouble and needs rescuing. It's one large step forward.
Will led the man toward him, stretched out rope across the path to trip him and cause him to fall in a pit. The man held on and grabbed Will's shoe, trying to take him down with him. Will kicked him and the shoe came loose and the man fell to his death.
Murder is scary in a kid's book. But Will didn't mind killing someone. He knew he should feel bad but he didn't. Imagine a kid having this thought! Obviously, he wasn't going to help the man who wanted to kill him and Sarah, but don't have him nonchalant about murder.
The remaining man was planning to take the money and Sarah to Mexico, because for some reason he needed her...Yeah, I still don't get that. Will made spooky noises, enough to distract him and enable Sarah to kick him and give them enough time to get away. They escaped through the ceiling trap door and met cops outside. The story wasn't over as they told his grandpa that the man had gotten away by climbing down the rope, only to have cops catch him on the other side. Don't know why he couldn't have just been apprehended in the first place but this does have to be as dramatic as it can get.
Sarah apologized for not being able to show the grandpa the statue and that sucked. He should have seen it. But he did say it's better this way because it belongs in the cave. He still should have seen it, the evidence that his story was true.
An agent from the truck company where the money was stolen offered them $1,000 as a reward. He asked if they knew the other man who had helped the deputies by blocking the criminal's escape from the cave. He wore an "ancient Indian costume." It shouldn't be called costume, but outfit since they weren't dressing up.
Will asked his grandpa if it could really be the Apache from the legend and he said it was their way that when you look at something with your eyes it might seem impossible but when you look with your heart everything is possible.
It ended suddenly and I found the story to be really incomplete. There was no intro to the characters or their lives, no descriptions of what anyone looked like or how old they were. He deposited us right in the middle of a story and then ended it just as quickly as it started. The writing wasn't great. He would switch to the bad guys' POV with no warning and then just as quickly change back to the MCs in a really clunky way. Despite there being male and female leads who are friends, there wasn't anything in that department which I had hoped for. She held into his shirt as he walked to stay by him, and they grabbed each other's arm and hand as they fled, and the bad guys called them boyfriend and girlfriend but there was nothing of the sort. A letdown.
It's nothing you haven't seen done before a million times. It's a cookie-cutter story with a run-of-the-mill plot and bad guys. I don't feel the need to read this author again.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 24, 2024
“My mom gets worried every time we come to Ghost Mountain.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is a chapter book in the action/mystery genre.
Will and Sarah explore the caverns that an old Indian legend has been told about. They are chased by bandits and struggle with escape when they get lost in the maze of the cavern.
This was a cute fast read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is a chapter book in the action/mystery genre.
Will and Sarah explore the caverns that an old Indian legend has been told about. They are chased by bandits and struggle with escape when they get lost in the maze of the cavern.
This was a cute fast read.
August 26, 2022
This is a good old fashioned adventure tale. I loved it. Gary Paulsen is great at everything but especially this kind of adventure story with a touch of the mystical.
A good rule is to
Absolutely never go
Spelunking alone.
A good rule is to
Absolutely never go
Spelunking alone.
November 30, 2017
it was pretty good but I didn't like that they put in bottomless pits
August 26, 2018
Good adventure story for the 8 to 12 year old set.
January 7, 2022
A nice adventure that I enjoyed reading c:
October 12, 2022
Read this book out loud to my 4 & 6-year-old. My 4yo was scared, and my 6yo liked it.
November 2, 2022
Another very exciting story to read to children. They won’t let you stop until the story is finished.
January 11, 2024
3.5/5 I never read these as a kid. Didnt even know they existed.
January 12, 2024
Absolutely love this new series by Gary Paulson
August 5, 2016
While exploring some caverns, Will and Sarah find a treasure but also a threat. They may not get out of those caverns alive!
Paulsen begins this book with Will pretending to be the young brave about whom the caverns have a famous legend. Paulsen breaks away from the fantasy to reality, starting the plot of this story. This is sure to suck in those young readers, helping them to imagine adventures they would like to have!
Like all of Paulsen books, this one is sure to appeal to the young with a thirst for adventure. His characters always ring true, as they lead the young reader on an adventure that children only dream about. His settings are always vivid, making the adventure even more exciting. His writing is so smooth and effortless, even the young reader will forget she is reading. Every young adventurer will love this book!
Paulsen begins this book with Will pretending to be the young brave about whom the caverns have a famous legend. Paulsen breaks away from the fantasy to reality, starting the plot of this story. This is sure to suck in those young readers, helping them to imagine adventures they would like to have!
Like all of Paulsen books, this one is sure to appeal to the young with a thirst for adventure. His characters always ring true, as they lead the young reader on an adventure that children only dream about. His settings are always vivid, making the adventure even more exciting. His writing is so smooth and effortless, even the young reader will forget she is reading. Every young adventurer will love this book!
December 22, 2012
This is a short adventure book for readers who are starting to dive in to the world of chapter books. In typical late 80's/early 90's style, the plot is adventurous but simple and fun all at the same time. If your young reader is looking for an adventure with a little bit of suspense in it, this is a great start for them.
January 22, 2013
Adventure for Younger Readers
This book, obviously written for readers who are beginning to delve into longer, chapter books, is a good adventure tale full of action and mystery alike. The writing is simple yet engaging, and the reader can easily identify with either William or Sarah, the main characters, and experience the dangers and ultimate success along side them.
This book, obviously written for readers who are beginning to delve into longer, chapter books, is a good adventure tale full of action and mystery alike. The writing is simple yet engaging, and the reader can easily identify with either William or Sarah, the main characters, and experience the dangers and ultimate success along side them.
March 21, 2008
I liked this short story, I liked the mystery and little bit make believe history too!
May 2, 2011
Gary Paulsen truly does create a world of adventure for young readers. My 3 year old absolutely loves this book and wouldn't let me put it down until it was finished!
December 3, 2012
A very quick, easy read yet engaging and entertaining.
November 8, 2008
This book was ok but not that cool>
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews