Most Popular Books by Patricia Beatty

During the closing days of the Civil War, plucky 12-year-old Hannalee Reed, sent north to work in a Yankee mill, struggles to return to the family she left behind in war-torn Georgia. "A fast-moving novel based upon an actual historical incident with a spunky heroine and fine historical detail."--School Library Journal. Author''s note. "There are few authors who can consistently manage both to entertain and inform." --Booklist

In 1861 twelve-year-old Truth, a Quaker girl from Indiana, is staying with relatives who run a North Carolina station of the Underground Railroad, when her world is changed by the beginning of the Civil War.

In the early years of the Civil War, teenage Kansan farm boy Lije Tulley becomes a Jayhawker, an abolitionist raider freeing slaves from the neighboring state of Missouri, and then goes undercover there as a spy.

To help her poverty-stricken family, 13-year-old Lupita enters California as an illegal alien and starts to work while constantly on the watch for "la migra."

Crossing over the border is a dangerous business... ...But Lupita must cross from Mexico to America. After her father dies in a fishing boat accident in the seas near their small Mexican village, Lupita''s family is left in poverty. Lupita and her big brother, Salvador, must smuggle themselves into the United States to earn money to support their mother and young siblings. America is not the land of opportunity they had hoped. A new language, hard labor, and the constant threat of la migra -- the immigration police--make every day a difficult challenge. But for feisty Lupita, there is always hope for a better manana -- tomorrow.

A thirteen-year-old Mormon boy from California makes his way east, searching for his horse which was stolen for use by the Confederates in the Civil War.

In the 1840''s in California a young Comanche refuses to accept the ways of his Mexican captors but wins their acceptance and admiration when he helps to cast the church bell and uses it to warn the villagers of approaching danger.

A stagecoach that vanished without a trace...$40,000 in stolen payroll money...a jewel-studded belt buckle -- they are all pieces of a 110-year-old mystery, that Paul Braun is determined to solve. While the thirteen year-old Easterner is visiting his grandmother in Colorado, she gives him a heart-decorated belt buckle that had belonged to a distant, vaguely remembered relative. Intrigued by the odd-looking heirloom, Paul and his new friend, an American Indian bo), named Jay Jenkins, hunt through dusty attic trunks and yellowing newspaper clippings trying to discover more about its enigmatic owner. Suddenly, their search uncovers an ever) more perplexing puzzle -- the still-unsolved disappearance of a stagecoach, its passengers, and the fortime in gold it was carrying. Men his ruby-studded buckle is stolen, Paul realizes that it could possibly be the key to the whereabouts of the long-vanished coach -- and that, even today, someone is intent on preventing anyone from unlocking its terrible secret, Drawing from a true incident in the American West''s rich past, master storyteller Patricia Beatty combines fast-paced plotting and a fascinating set of characters to weave this exciting tale of adventure and suspense.

Two youngsters meet their Uncle Rudd who tells them tall tales about his life with the cowboys, Indians, and Confederates.

A preacher''s daughter with lots of curiosity and a penchant for getting into trouble has an eventful year and a half, as all the predictions of a fortune-teller at a Texas county fair in 1898 come true.

In 1879 a thirteen-year-old boy, his friend, and his dog journey four hundred miles across Texas to bring back the body of an older brother for burial in the family graveyard.

A 13-year-old living in a turn-of-the-century California mining town determines to marry off her adoptive brothers and discover the identity of her real parents.

During the Civil War, a twelve-year-old Bowery Boy from New York City joins the Union Army as a drummer, deserts during a battle in Virginia, and encounters a hostile old mountain woman.

In the years 1893, sensible thirteen-year-old Melinda, finding herself stranded in the Colorado town of Goldendale, promptly becomes involved in the townspeople''s lives and assorted problems.

The Staffordshire terrier 13-year-old Cissie raises from an orphaned pup is stolen by her uncle and entered in illegal dogfights.

The women of a Montana mining town disrupt life when they try to raise money for a new school.

While stranded in the Arizona territory in the 1880''s a thirteen-year-old girl finds herself the owner of a traveling hotel.

When a new girl arrives at Fort Yuma, Arizona, in 1881, thirteen-year-old Dorcas finds herself involved in the escape of an outlaw from the prison across the river.