Riding Freedom by Pam Muñoz Ryan

While doing research for California Here We Come!, Pam Muñoz Ryan came across a mention of a real stagecoach driver in the 1800's called Six-Horse Charley. The story indicated that after a successful career driving stages and voting in a federal election, people discovered that HE was actually a SHE, Charlotte Parkhurst. Pam Muñoz Ryan was immediately intrigued. She pursued the research through the Santa Cruz Historical Society who provided her with approximately 50 pages of data that included copies of deeds to property that Charlotte had purchased as a man, articles that were printed in newspapers at the time of her death, AND "his" voting records. From that research and their bibliography for future reading, the facts about Charlotte's life surfaced.

How did you write the story?
     Just relying on the facts alone, I couldn't have asked for a better "bare bones" outline. An orphan who runs away and in order to survive, poses as a stableboy only to become a renowned stagecoach driver! She then is recruited to California during the Gold Rush, and even after losing the sight in one eye, continues driving stages successfully and still posed as a man, goes on to vote in a federal election 52 years before any woman.
    Initially, I thought that I would write a non-fiction account in a picture book format and that is what I submitted. But I was very fortunate to have a prophetic editor, Tracy Mack at Scholastic, who knew there was much more to tell. She encouraged me to write it as a novel and to let it become historical fiction.
    That's when the writing, and the fun, began. I got to fill in all the empty spaces in her life. I knew that she was an orphan, but I didn't know how she became an orphan so I created that scenario. I knew that she ran away from the orphanage when she was about twelve years old, but I wondered what could have been so bad about her situation that she might have wanted to leave. I also figured she must have had a friend (or actually, I wanted her to have a friend) somewhere in her young life, someone who might have helped her escape. I imagined that someone else must have trained her. Those inklings became Hayward, Vern, and Ebeneezer. And that's how the novel evolved.

How did you learn about stage coaches?
I didn't know much about stage-coaching so I had to start researching again. I found out as much as I could through written accounts and through Wells Fargo historical data but I wanted to watch a real team of horses being hitched. I wanted to take a real stagecoach ride. I wanted to travel on a dusty trail over rolling hills in a rutted-out road. But I couldn't find a working barn. Finally, someone mentioned Knott's Berry Farm, an amusement park in southern California, where they still give stagecoach rides every day. It wasn't exactly what I'd been hoping for but it turned out to be an unexpected treasure.
Their barn is adjacent to the park and is a full-scale working barn where they use original coaches that have only been modified slightly. They let me climb into the cabs, sit up top in the box seat, examine the thouroughbraces, and watch them hitch a team. And best of all, I got preferential treatment on a ride into the park. I got to ride shotgun and at one point, I got to hold six-in-the-hand.

Tell us about your Illustrator.
I was fortunate to have Brian Selznick as an illustrator on this book. His cover is remarkably mysterious and arresting. As I wrote the book, I knew what MY Charlotte felt and thought, and I knew things about her general appearance, but I couldn't really visualize her countenance. When I finally met her face-to-face, through Brian's illustrations, I was enraptured because Brian had captured her spirit. She became everything I never expected!

Regarding Riding Freedom

Cover illustration by Brian Selznick from Riding Freedom by Pam Muñoz Ryan. Published by Scholastic Press, a division of Scholastic Inc. Illustrations copyright© 1998 by Brian Selznick. Used by permission of Scholastic Inc.