 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Book Review
Follow Your Stars
by Susie Coffman, Sweet-Water Press, 2005, 423 pages.Follow Your Stars by Susie Coffman is an enjoyable collection of new Hoppy short stories and poems, dedicated to William "Hoppy" Boyd and his beautiful wife, Grace Bradley Boyd.
This book is a collection of 15 poems and 6 stories, along with many nice black & white illustrations of Mr. and Mrs. Hopalong Cassidy.
Being a verse writer myself, I especially enjoyed the poems Susie Coffman has written. For example the first poem in the book, "Starlight, Star bright," which she has dedicated -- "for you, Grace, his shining star."Then there's "The Lady and the Cowboy," which tells in verse the touching story of how Grace met Hoppy in 1937. Also there are several fine poems just about Hoppy, such as: "Gentleman of Lone Pine" and "That's What They Call Me." There's even a poem about Hoppy's horse, Topper. One of the lovely poems, "The Angels handed me a rose" I have set to music -- see this link for my Grace Bradley Boyd Tribute.
The six stories are fun to read and bring a love of the Hoppy lore written about in the Clarence E. Mulford novels.
If you want to see a Hoppy film location, take a look at page 408 showing "Gunsight Pass" as it looked in the 1941 Hoppy western, BORDER VIGILANTES, and how it looked in 2004. Not much has changed there.
In addition to the stories, it includes many pictures from Hoppy movie with Lucky, California, Windy, Topper and the rest of the Bar 20 crew, and wonderful pictures of William and Grace Boyd.
Susie Coffman brings a real sensitivity and warmth to her writing. If you're a real Hoppy fan and want to read some tributes to him, you should "follow your stars" and get this enjoyable collection of poems and stories, with some very nice illustrations too.
-- Roger Hall, August 2005/ revised: December 2010
Order your copy of Follow Your Stars
by writing to the author at
Order your copy of the book at this link:
Hopalong Cassidy: An American Legend
by Grace Bradley Boyd and Michael Cochran.
More about Mr. and Mrs Hopalong Cassidy...
A Tribute To Grace Bradley Boyd (1913-2010)
"Following the Stars" -
Music and Memories of Hopalong Cassidy
(book, music, picture gallery)
.jpg)
For lots more information, go to
.jpg)
Read all about the 16th Annual Hopalong Cassidy Festival
held in Cambridge, Ohio
© 2010 PineTree Productions. All Rights Reserved.