Ruby and Maude Adventures Book Signing

Nancy Oswald will be a guest at a book signing at the Victor Lowell Thomas Museum over Victor Celebrates the Arts weekend.

Oswald loves researching and writing historical fiction books for young readers. She has, however, written in a variety of genres including personal interest pieces, children’s plays, poetry, educational research, and non-fiction articles.

Maude Oliver, the donkey, is the fictional character that joins Ruby in her adventures, a young adult series called the Ruby and Maude Adventures – Rescue in Poverty Gulch, Trouble on the Tracks, and Trouble Returns.

In book one, 11-year-old Ruby is in a pickle. After years of traveling the mountains and hills of Colorado with her Pa and their donkey, Maude, Pa decides to settle down in the booming gold mining town of Cripple Creek.

Worse than that, Pa decides it’s time for Ruby to learn something about being a lady. Vinegar and baking soda don’t mix. Ruby faces the prospects of having to wear a corset, learning the art of elocution, and the possibility of having the school headmistress for a mother.

Events lead Ruby into the midst of the 1896 Cripple Creek fire and culminate with the kidnapping and rescue of Maude from the clutches of a local scoundrel. The plot thickens as the series continues.

Oswald spent her growing up years in Denver, but she has lived as an adult in rural Colorado and the outback of British Columbia where she taught in a one- and a two-room school.

She taught for 20 years in rural Colorado and is now retired. She currently lives with her husband and their dogs, cats, cows, chickens, and donkey on a family ranch near Cotopaxi, Colorado.

Their donkey, Daisy, is the inspiration for the character in her books.

The signing is the museum’s way of celebrating the written word during the annual Victor Celebrates the Arts.