The Adventures of Jules & Gertie, and Auntie Claus
Reviewed by Amanda Eyre Ward, Fri., Dec. 24, 1999
The Adventures of Jules & Gertie
by Esther Pearl WatsonHarcourt Brace, 36 pp., $16
The Western plains prove a festive backdrop in Esther Pearl Watson's The Adventures of Jules and Gertie, a rapid-fire children's book that will leave you hollering and kicking up your spurs. Jules, a cowgirl, is "strong like licorice." Her horse, Gertie, "can sing, dance, cook, make a mean cup of coffee, multiply, divide, and speak three languages." Little wonder, then, that the two of them strike terror in the hearts of Mean Bulldog Pike and his "skunk of a horse," Bullet. Mean Bulldog Pike, with his hook of a hand and bushy eyebrows, is not someone I'd want to meet in a dark alley, but brave Jules has just the stuff to take him on. When she thunders in to save the day, riding a longhorn cyclone bull, nary a crayon curl out of place, she had me cheering. In a world of placid princesses, Jules is just the kind of gal to make you say, "Yikki yea!"
