Legends of the Lost Causes

Gr 4–7—McLelland and Sylvester's debut novel and series opener is a classic Western full of cowboys, adventure, and a sprinkling of the supernatural. In 1850s Missouri, orphans Keech and Sam's peaceful life at the Home for Lost Causes is interrupted when a stranger named Bad Whiskey comes looking for the orphanage's patriarch, Pa Abner. As it turns out, Pa—whose real name is Isaiah Raines—used to be part of a group known as the Enforcers. When Pa doesn't reveal the location of the mysterious Char Stone, Bad Whiskey shoots Pa dead and burns the orphanage to the ground. Only Keech escapes and, on the road, joins a band of other orphans to follow Pa's secret telegram to find the Char Stone before Bad Whiskey and his army of undead thralls do. The characters are all larger-than-life, including a few that stand out against the White majority: Keech is part Osage and Cutter is Latinx. The Old West lingo-laden dialogue is pitch-perfect—not to mention contagious. It's rare to see a Western in middle grade fiction—especially one that, like this one, eliminates some of the genre's more harmful stereotypes of Native populations.