Wild Texas Stampede!, The - Tapa dura

After her father leaves for Austin, Texas, Ima Hogg is left in charge of their unique farm and minding her mischievous little brother, Tom. The only problem is that Ima's farm has exotic animals like buffaloes, ostriches, and elephants, and her little brother is as troublesome as they come.

After Tom tries hypnotizing the ostriches, he and Ima's little terrier Tippy catches a mouse to scare the elephants. Ima has her hands full with Tom, but real trouble starts when Tom enrages the buffaloes into a stampede. It's up to Ima to stop Tom from bothering the buffaloes, outraging the ostriches, and panicking the pachyderms and to end the stampede before it's too late!

The character of Ima Hogg is based on a real-life girl who was born in Texas in the late 1800s. Her father, Gov. James Hogg, owned a menagerie full of exotic animals, and she did have a pestering little brother named Tom who caused mischief all over the farm.

Margaret McManis spent her childhood only a short ride away from the Varner-Hogg Plantation in West Columbia, Texas, where The Wild Texas Stampede!, her first Pelican children's book, is set. She has traveled to Versailles, France, to study the gardens there and wrote an article about how they influenced Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend Gardens in Houston, Texas. McManis has more than thirty years' experience as a children's librarian and has worked in public and school libraries in the Austin, Houston, and Angleton areas. She lives in Conroe, Texas.

Bruce Dupree received his M.A. in illustration from Syracuse University. An award-winning illustrator whose freelance clients include the National Academy of the Sciences, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the American Red Cross, Dupree is the art director at Auburn University. The father of two teenage children, he lives in Auburn, Alabama.