I was delighted to find this rather unique book written for teenagers who are vegetarian or who may be interested in becoming vegetarian. Our hero, Wylie Jackson, is a restless 17-year-old in small town Odessa, Texas, in the year 1881. His sense of adventure and fearless interest in exploring his world remind me a bit of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Wylie is itching to join a cattle drive to Wichita, and can't believe his fortune to be asked to be the assistant cook. He reluctantly humors his friend Alice when he agrees to safely escort her pet cattalo (a cross of buffalo with a Texas cow) named Roselle to an aunt enroute.

Early on, Wylie finds out the truth about calves born enroute on the drive. They are shot because the calf cannot keep up and the mother cow won't leave the baby's side. In fact, Wylie participates in such a shooting but is later filled with remorse. Wylie decides that he wants to help and not harm animals, and sneaks away from the group with Roselle, with whom he shares a stronger and stronger bond.

Soon he becomes a (ovo-lacto) vegetarian. His many adventures bring him to a native American healer; Dr. Majul Majul, a Punjabi Sikh vegetarian who teaches Wylie Indian cooking and gives lectures about the dangers of eating meat, and who had been selling electric belts but now is running for his life in disguise because the belt batteries leaked and caused "battery acid burns of the generative organs"; a murderer with whom he shares a jail cell and is almost executed in a case of switched identity; and a firm but generous doctor who provides the discipline to turn Wylie into a hard working student of medicine.

Each chapter is easily read in one sitting and begins with what is usually a grisly recipe, many of which were difficult for me to read. The first one is for porterhouse steaks and asks to "catch a well-fleshed steer, about eight-hundred-pound weight. Bind its rear legs, trip it ..., and stun by a blow to the head ... being careful not to crush the skull. Hoist the steer to the tripod and place a washtub under the head" (page 1); skipping some sections not for the faint of heart, "concentrate fecal matter in the lower colon and tie this off in two places. Slice above and below the ties and bury. Remove the intestines and organs and place them in a washtub with blood for future use" (page 2) - and on. One recipe is for the scrambled brains of calves with eggs, and another for curried horse.

Perhaps I'm more squeamish or conservative in these matters than others, but such soberly explicit recipes and some themes that I found a bit mature (about crime, deception, a recipe for prairie oysters, or the cool matter-of-fact style of such recipes, for example) suggest to me an audience of later high school students and older. As an adult, I found the reading to be addictive and Wylie's adventures for the most part quite exciting and fresh, with plot turns that I would not have predicted.

Overall, this is a book that I highly recommend to older teens and adults. Though I wish the author had included more vegetarian recipes that are healthy (in defense, he does include a recipe for masoor dhal), vegetarians who can stomach the given recipes will have no regrets at having chosen their lifestyle. I don't know if a non-vegetarian would read this book, and, even if they did, I can't say if the recipes or rather understated arguments for vegetarianism would make them consider a change of diet. The case for vegetarianism could have been made much stronger without being preachy or taking away from the excitement of the plot. Except for Wylie (and perhaps Roselle), don't look for in-depth character development.

Nevertheless, this is a unique, fun, and very interesting book that is a real page-turner. The relationship and close communication Wylie and Roselle build is heart warming, and it is wonderful to see Wylie's rejection of a meat-and-more-meat culture that he has grown up in. The book jacket indicates that the author is writing Moonlight Rider: The Second Vegetarian Western, and I would relish reading it too.