Books with title Down, down the mountain

White's books were popular at a time when America was losing its vanishing wilderness. He was a keen observer of the beauties of nature and human nature, yet could render them in a plain-spoken style. Based on his own experience, whether writing camping journals or Westerns, he included pithy and fun details about cabin-building, canoeing, logging, gold-hunting, and guns and fishing and hunting. He also interviewed people who had been involved in the fur trade, the California gold rush and other pioneers which provided him with details that give his novels verisimilitude. He salted in humor and sympathy for colorful characters such as canny Indian guides and "greenhorn" campers who carried too much gear. White also illustrated some of his books with his own photographs, while some of his other books, were illustrated by artists, such as the American Western painter Fernand Lungren for "The Mountains" and "Camp and Trail". Theodore Roosevelt wrote that White was "the best man with both pistol and rifle who ever shot" at Roosevelt's rifle range at Sagamore Hill.

Six trails lead to the main ridge. They are all good trails, so that even the casual tourist in the little Spanish-American town on the seacoast need have nothing to fear from the ascent. In some spots they contract to an arm's length of space, outside of which limit they drop sheer away; elsewhere they stand up on end, zigzag in lacets each more hair-raising than the last, or fill to demoralization with loose boulders and shale. A fall on the part of your horse would mean a more than serious accident; but Western horses do not fall. The major premise stands: even the casual tourist has no real reason for fear, however scared he may become. Our favorite route to the main ridge was by a way called the Cold Spring Trail. We used to enjoy taking visitors up it, mainly because you come on the top suddenly, without warning. Then we collected remarks. Everybody, even the most stolid, said something.

Before your very eyes, this little redhead is about to do something extremely daring. And scary. And she'll show you-she'll actually document, step-by-step-exactly how she does it. First, she takes her Daddy and makes him stand very still. Then, balancing herself on his shoe, she wraps her arms tightly around a leg and starts her perilous ascent to the summit. Thrills and chills, guaranteed. LOOK OUT BELOW!! JULES FEIFFER has won a number of prizes for his cartoons, plays, and screenplays, including the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. His books for children include The House Across the Street; By the Side of the Road; I'm Not Bobby; I Lost My Bear; and Meanwhile..He lives in New York City.

The first book of the classic feminist 'Herland trilogy', Charlotte Gilman's 'Moving the Mountain' was first published in 1911. It tells the tale of American John Robertson, a native of South Carolina, and student of ancient languages, who at the age of 25 travels to Tibet and, after an unfortunate accident, suffers complete memory loss. Thirty years later, in 1940, he is found by his sister Nellie, recovers his memory and returns to the United States. Much has altered since John left his native shore. Women have become emancipated, and have changed many aspects of society for the better: crime, poverty, prostitution, corruption and racism are no more. For John the culture shock is extreme - he retains the misogynist world-view of his youth, and finds equality of the sexes a bitter pill to swallow. Gilman skillfully uses John's (fictional) reactionary feelings to dissect and reject the (actual) domination and gender discrimination practiced by the men of her own time. A timely reminder of how far feminism has come - and altered - in the past 100 years.

"Miss Stafford writes with brilliance. Scene after scene is told with unforgettable care and tenuous entanglements are treated with wise subtlety. She creates a splendid sense of time, of the unending afternoons of youth, and of the actual color of noon and of night. Refinement of evil, denial of drama only make the underlying truth more terrible. " --Saturday Review "Hard to match . . . for subtlety and understanding. . . written wittily, lucidly, and with great respect for the resources of the language. " --New Yorker Coming of age in pre-World War II California and Colorado brings tragedy to Molly and Ralph Fawcett in Jean Stafford's classic semi-autobiographical novel, first published in 1947. Torn between their mother's world of genteel respectability and their grandfather's and uncle's world of cowboy masculinity, neither Molly nor Ralph can find an acceptable adult role to aspire to. As events move to their swift and inevitable conclusion, Stafford uncovers and indicts the social forces that require boys to sacrifice the feminine in order to become men and doom intelligent girls who aren't pretty.

In the first book, the two brothers meet Haktu, the young Indian brave who was trapped inside the body of an underwater dragon, and then find his lost pony, Uno, deep within a mysterious forest. After the boys narrowly escape several vicious attacks from evil wolf-crows, they receive a magic blue feather from Haktu as he bids them his final farewell. Book Two begins with Archibald and Jockabeb flying to a secluded summer camp perched high in a rugged mountain range far from home. The fact that they are the only two campers to show up at Camp Bear Claw that summer is just the first of many surprises -- incredible surprises that test the protective power of their magic blue feather in completely unexpected ways. On their way to a final face-to-face showdown with a deadly creature that possesses supernatural strength, the young boys meet several unforgettable characters who end up changing their lives forever. If you liked In the Forest, hold onto your hat as you read its sequel!