{"id":89,"date":"2008-03-30T17:33:52","date_gmt":"2008-03-30T21:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/30\/review-of-the-cowgirl-aunt-of-harriet-bean-by-alexander-mccall-smith\/"},"modified":"2008-05-07T22:29:58","modified_gmt":"2008-05-08T02:29:58","slug":"review-of-the-cowgirl-aunt-of-harriet-bean-by-alexander-mccall-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=89","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Cowgirl Aunt of Harriet Bean, by Alexander McCall Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image106\" height=\"240\" alt=\"cowgirl_aunt.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/cowgirl_aunt.jpg\" \/>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Cowgirl Aunt of Harriet Bean, <\/em>by Alexander McCall Smith<\/p>\n<p>Performed by Charlotte Parry<\/p>\n<p>Recorded Books, New York, 2007.\u00a0 1 compact disc.\u00a0 1.25 hours.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s always fun to listen to a British narrator, and it was a treat to listen to Charlotte Parry talking about the exploits of Harriet&#8217;s detective aunts, Aunt Thessalonika and Aunt\u00a0Japonica.\u00a0 In this book, Harriet learns that she has a sixth aunt she hadn&#8217;t known about, Aunt Formica.\u00a0 Aunt Formica grew up on a ranch in America, and is a skilled cowgirl, but she has asked her detective sisters for help, and Harriet gets to come along.<\/p>\n<p>The story is fun, reminding me of a traditional tall tale.\u00a0 I love Alexander McCall Smith&#8217;s stories, but do think he does a little better when he writes about places where he has lived.\u00a0 This story set in the American West struck me as highly stereotypical.\u00a0 I certainly hope none of his readers would ever try to deal with a rattlesnake in the way that happens here!<\/p>\n<p>All the same, this is a fun story and a quick read (or listen).\u00a0 This could be an excellent choice for a child just ready to read chapter books on their own.\u00a0 It&#8217;s not too long and daunting, but does have some excitement, as Harriet and her capable aunts deal with rustlers.<\/p>\n<p>Find this review on the main site at:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/cowgirl_aunt.html\">www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/cowgirl_aunt.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 The Cowgirl Aunt of Harriet Bean, by Alexander McCall Smith Performed by Charlotte Parry Recorded Books, New York, 2007.\u00a0 1 compact disc.\u00a0 1.25 hours. It&#8217;s always fun to listen to a British narrator, and it was a treat to listen to Charlotte Parry talking about the exploits of Harriet&#8217;s detective aunts, Aunt Thessalonika and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40,10,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobooks","category-beginning-chapter-books","category-childrens-fiction-review","category-mystery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}