Travel Into Texas History . . .

Book One    

Hannah stared a second time at the crumbling fossil of a building before her. Her eyes opened wide. This was the same building as the wooden figure Nick had taken from her. This building was the Alamo, the Alamo of the past! Mr. Barrington’s voice echoed in her mind, "You will choose an event in Texas history and become part of it.’”       

Hannah finds nothing adventurous about the seventh grade—until she meets her new Texas history teacher, Mr. Barrington, who brings in a mysterious trunk and assigns an unusual project: to become a part of history. While seeking inspiration among the historical artifacts contained in the trunk, Hannah, her brother Nick, and her friend Jackie are suddenly thrown back through time, finding themselves at an old Spanish mission in San Antonio. It’s the Alamo, and the famous battle is about to begin!  

Join Hannah, Nick, and Jackie as they dodge cannonballs and bayonets; meet William Barret Travis, David Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Enrique Esparza; and learn valuable lessons about honor and the importance of history.

2006-2007  Humanities Texas.

Writer’s League of Texas

Available from Texas Tech University Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.

Book Three      

Nick is on a mission. Deeply troubled by the loss of a young friend at the Battle of San Jacinto, he wants desperately to return to the scene of the battle—to alter history. But when he furtively opens the mysterious trunk, now in Mr. Barrington’s attic, he is transported instead to Gonzales in 1835. There he meets many historical characters, including the young  Alamo defenders William King, John Gaston, and Galba Fuqua. (Will, Johnny, and Galba are introduced in Book One of the series.) Once befriended by them, Nick finds himself caught up in the excitement precipitating the Battle of Gonzales.         

Hannah and Jackie, knowing they must stop Nick and bring him back safely, follow by trunk in hot pursuit. After falling down a riverbank, Hannah is rescued by Lieutenant Ramires, a member of the Alamo de Parras Company of dragoons sent to retrieve the Gonzales "Come and Take It" cannon. The girls are escorted to his camp, where they learn about life in the Mexican army and the tensions that are building in  Texas.

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

Available from Texas Tech University Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.

Book Five      

“Now don’t change history while I’m gone,” Mr. B had said before leaving Hannah and Nick to lock the trunk in the classroom closet. Despite Hannah’s pledge to comply, a trickle of beach sand and a slosh of seawater turn to a flood tide after she lifts the lid.        

The siblings, along with their friend Jackie, find themselves in a wooden canoe off the seventeenth-century Texas coast—with a gale approaching and nothing to get them home but a magic ring and a list of riddles. No sooner does their rescuer, Sébastien, haul the trio aboard ship than they are pressed into service on the doomed French bark La Belle.        

Blamed for shipwreck, attacked on shore by arrow-firing Karankawa warriors, and chased by alligators, Hannah, Jackie, and Nick rush to complete the scavenger hunt with the aid of the settlement’s resourceful colonists. From the Talon family they learn survival skills in the dense, dangerous woods—as they teach a few lessons of their own. But when a feverish Hannah collapses on the night of La Salle’s long-awaited return, will a gold coin turn up in time to redeem her life?

Available from Texas Tech University Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.

Book Seven 

A struggle over a bowl of popcorn begins another time-traveling adventure for Nick, Jackie, and Hannah. When Mr. Barrington’s trunk magically appears on the Taylor’s kitchen table, a family of slaves steps out, followed by a snapping dog. Jackie is mistaken for an escaped slave and kidnapped by a hideous man. Trying to save her, Hannah and Nick are transported back to June 1865 only to discover that even though the Civil War has ended months before, many Texas plantation owners still own slaves. Befriended by twins Sam and Lily, the time travelers witness horrific truths of plantation life: whippings, beatings, and families being torn apart. After Lily is sold to another plantation in Galveston, they devise with Sam a plan to rescue her. Their race against time takes them through a spooky graveyard and over a river teeming with alligators, with vicious hounds in close pursuit. With the absorbing pace and historic detail that Mr. Barrington’s Mysterious Trunk fans have come to expect, Cuate leads her protagonists, and her young readers, to the first Juneteenth.

Juvenile Western Fiction

Available from Texas Tech University Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.