HAPPY TRAILS

Pop-culture enthusiasts Jane and Michael Stern (Way Out West, 1993, etc.) are the perfect coauthors for the popular cowboy/cowgirl couple, stars of movies, radio, and TV during the 1940s and '50s. Alternating with Roy and Dale's first-person reminiscences, the Sterns' chapters provide a cultural/historical background and add an appreciative (but never icky) account of their impact on young Jane, Michael, and other Baby Boomers who bought cap guns, moccasins, and similar items emblazoned with Roy's image. Rogers and Evans themselves, despite their firmly professed Christian faith, are not saints: Dale was married at 14, a mother at 15, divorced at 16; when she wed Roy in 1947, he was a widower with three young children inclined to resent her. Although they chronicle the untimely deaths of three other offspring (one a Down's syndrome baby, another killed in a car crash, a third done in by a drinking bout with fellow enlisted men), the tone is generally upbeat and sweet—but not too sweet. (32 pages b&w photos, not seen)