California or Bust

by Judith Bauer Stamper

Luke and his father travel to California in 1849 to search for gold, and Luke describes their progress in letters to his family back east.

16 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Juliette Ghee-Pratt · Rating 4 out of 5]

California or Bust is about a young boy, Luke and his Pa that’s traveling by wagon train to California in search of becoming rich by mining for gold. During his journey, he writes his family and the family dog to keep them abreast of the details of their trip. Luke describes to his family that everything about the big city is a “is a boom town!” (Stamper 12). Four months into their travel, Luke and his Pa discovered gold nuggets, and the next day they went into town to have the gold weighed and registered. When they returned, they discovered, two miners that were claim jumpers, pulling out their stake, because they heard about the gold that Luke and his Pa had found, and they tried to take ownership of the area that Luke and his Pa had placed the stake marker, that read "Smiley's Claim”. Luke and his Ps has now struck it rich! I enjoyed reading the text, and I believe that younger readers would enjoy it too. This is a book that could be a tool for teaching beginning lessons on how a person must register their earnings.

[Anna Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young man writes to his family back home about him and his father's adventures in the California gold rush.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

v. basic intro to the california gold rush, good for second grade, should encourage lots of questions, nice art.

[Beverly Kennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Level M written as journal entries from a boy's perspective of his experience gold mining with his father good for vocab and phrases