What Was the Gold Rush?

What was...?

by Joan Holub, Who H.Q., Tim Tomkinson (Illustrator)

In 1848, gold was discovered in California, attracting over 300,000 people from all over the world, some who struck it rich and many more who didn't. Hear the stories about the gold-seeking "forty-niners!" With black-and white illustrations and sixteen pages of photos, a nugget from history is brought to life!

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Childrens, American History, Middle Grade, Chapter Books, Education

112 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 2013

About the author

NY Times bestselling children's book author:
GODDESS GIRLS series + HEROES IN TRAINING series (w Suzanne Williams); THIS LITTLE TRAILBLAZER a Girl Power Primer; ZERO THE HERO; I AM THE SHARK. Lucky to be doing what I love!

Reviews

[Janete on hiatus due health issues · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Continuing the Project Learning English by myself.

[Gabriel alexander Arras · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book is a good book because this book is about gold or more specifically, a gold rush.
There was a gold rush in Nevada. The most popular gold rush was in California and it was discovered on accident.


I recommend this book to any one who likes biographies.

[Readasaurus Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yikes

Seems like the experience was altogether miserable. Lol. It did however cause more of the West to become populated. Interesting

[Colin BM · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked it, it was very cool and i learned a lot about t.

[zapkode · Rating 5 out of 5]

{My Thoughts} – The Gold Rush was an important time period that had taken place in 1848. It helped to shape the United States into much of what it is today. This book teaches the reader many of the significant events that had occurred from 1799-1914. The event that is most focused on is the Gold Rush, but because of the Gold Rush so many other important events had taken place.

When you think about the Gold Rush you think of all the people that had rushed to California to mine Gold. That isn’t the only location in which gold mining had taken place. It also isn’t the only job that had been available at the time. It is true that finding gold wasn’t an easy task and that many people had died trying, but that didn’t stop them from trying. There were also those individual’s that had found ways to make a living even though they didn’t want to mine gold.

Many of the bushinesses that had begun during the events of the Gold Rush are still around today. It was interesting to learn that so many of them that we know of now were created back then and that they’s survived all those years.

I love reading about and learning history. It’s one of my favorite subjects. I enjoy being able to learn more about subjects that interest me and subjects that I didn’t otherwise know much about. I think that this book is wonderful for kids and that it could easily be used as a summary of events should a parent or teacher want to quiz a child on what they learned. It can also be a nice read for a child just enjoys learning facts about the country in which we live in. Either way it’s nicely written and extremely informative.

[Caleb Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the book What Was The Gold Rush by, Joan Holub, talks about the very famous gold rush that happened in California. This book talks about how a simple discovery of Gold in California by a small plantation worker turned into a huge migration that eventually helped for the present state California. The miners that moved to California were usually men who had left their families in order to go to California and try and become rich! Very few actually became rich and many lost everything including their homes and money. The Gold Rush was one of many Gold Rushes in America but by far it was the largest and greatest of them all.
Overall I found this book to be a very good and interesting book. I had watched a show about mining Gold and it was very interesting so to read a book about a Gold Rush was very neat and exciting. The book was filled with information about its topic along with fun facts along the way and descriptions that helped the reader understand an important subject or topic that the author was talking about. This helped me out in several ways and in the end, made this one of the best What Was books I have ever read.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good book or just wants to learn about something new. I would also recommend this book to people who are testing their luck to show them that it always doesn't turn out the way you hoped it would along with people that want to learnt about the Gold Rush in California.

[Jack McKernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the last books that I read this semester was "What was the Gold Rush" by Joan Holub. The gold rush was an event where their was a lot of gold being found in the state of California. The gold rush is the event that put California on the map because people from east coast states were moving to California to mine for gold. It wasn't the best life for most of the gold miners only making about $10 a day of the gold being found. These miners had terrible working conditions and living conditions when gold wasn't being found. I don't think anyone will ever forget the bad and or the thrilling days of the gold rush.

One thing I liked about this book was the part where they told us about how the workers actually mined the gold which was by panning because I thought it was cool. One thing I didn't like about this book was the part when the people caught gold fever. One thing I would change about this book was the part when the miners got gold fever.

I really like this and I would recommend it to people who would like to about gold. This book had a lot of gold in it and it was also pretty funny. I had a good time reading this book and if you do I hope you will too.

D

[Connor Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What was the Gold Rush by Joan Holub was a great non fiction book with a lot of facts. I was a small book that is personally one of my favorite books of all time. While reading more and more questions were coming through my head and then the questions got answered on the next page. One of the best books I have ever read.

The gold rush hit California in the 1800s and it made a huge impact on the United States. People from the eastern part of the U.S. Are coming to the west hoping to strike gold. They worked 16 hour days and they make around 5 to 30$ a day. Honestly I don't think that I could handle that. But, they were so desperate to strike rich they would do anything for it. Read the rest to get all of the details.

I recommend this book to people who like quick reads but still get a lot out of the book. This book was a real page turner.

[Patti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wonderful little book with a fun picture on the front is perfect for young readers to read on their own, especially if challenged to do a report. Gold Rush facts are clearly written in kid-friendly way that will not intimidate reluctant readers. This small book packs a bounty of information into 100 pages of large print. I flagged many pages with fascinating facts I wanted to include in my 4th grade presentation for my granddaughter’s class.

The book includes: drawn illustrations as well as actual photographs; a timeline of the Gold Rush; timeline of the world; map routes, clearly drawn but simple; and occasional sections of interest - “What is Gold?”, “Silver”, and “What is the Klondike?”

This little $6 book (probably less on amazon) is worth buying for any elementary student studying the California Gold Rush. Well done! 4 1/2 stars.

[Tag Broaderip · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Gold Rush happened in the US in the late 1800's. Gold was first discovered in North Carolina in 1849. The first gold nugget was found by a boy in a creek and weighed 195 pounds! They didn't know it was gold or that it was valuable so they used it as a door stop. Several years later they sold it for $3.95. Prospectors are people searching for gold. some people were not good at that they went a long way to find gold and come back with nothing or vary little. some new what they were doing a came back rich.



I would recommend this book because it told a lot about the gold rush and how some people did not get rich at all.

why did I chose this book because I thought it would be cool to learn about the gold rush

[Takuya Kitaura · Rating 4 out of 5]

penguin level3
Time 7/6 50min 7/7 20min
7 word summary Calfornia-19-century-people-seek-gold-America

Discussion question

In this story, many people tried to get much gold.

Have you ever tried to get something enthusiastically?

Yes, I have. When I was junior high school student, I trid to get many J-pop CDs.

This story is so famous! I like this story. The value of gold does not change easily.

[Gerardo Sicairos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This informational text is a good book to go to when you want to learn about the gold rush and it is only 102 pages.I recommended this to people that like to learn about history and the gold rush.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5]

The only thing that WASN'T mentioned was the big business brothels must've been.

But this is a kid's book after all. :P

[Rehmatjyot Singh]

at the end everyone dies

[Annie Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good and held a nice amount of information. It's also a quick read (obviously)

[Deke Moulton · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a kid friendly, beginner reading book, I think this pretty much does what it’s intended to do.

I appreciate that The book is very blunt about how terrible the gold rush was. It was terrible for the actual prospectors, and the book details how people were tricked out of a lot of money, prospectors murdered one another because there was no law, everything was extremely expensive and a lot of people died.

I enjoyed that it touched on marginalized people, including Women, Chinese, and Native Americans. I think it could’ve probably done a little bit more with those groups. In particular, even though the book is very frank that The experience of Native Americans was very bad, it kind of insinuates most natives simply died of disease, when the state of California put out an active bounty on killing as many natives as possible and actually getting paid money from the state for bringing in scalps. Maybe not the greatest subject For a beginning reader book, but I think there is probably a more tactful weight to explain that The natives simply died because of disease.

Still, it was a very realistic look at history, without glamorizing this incredibly greedy period of American history. Even the very first person to find golden California and it up having a much worse life after the fact, and I think that is an important subject for kids to know, that The pursuit of riches, especially easy riches, is often very terrible for everyone involved

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

What was the gold rush by Joan Holub is an itresting book. I have learned so many thigs i never really knew about the gold rush. I always thought it all started in California but it actually started in 1799 north carolina and then in 1828 georgia gold rush . But the one in California was a huge deal. California had to deal with the land of gold the land was currently being used by a Native American tribe named Nisenan. And so the US had made deals to take iver the land in exchange for cloths and hanker chifs . What was also interesting was that miners came from all over the world just to hope to get lucky to strike gold . There were hardly any women involved in this most men couldn't afford to bring thier wives and that is was too hard for women to work . But women did get money by making home made mesls for hungry miners . And what was really interesting is that some people would start to lose hope until stories from all these people claimed to have been finding gold and miners had been becoming hopful again . And this all stated by the two men named james marshall and john sutter who had both sent a letter to the world telling them there is lots of gold in California especially San Francisco. I recomend this book to any one wh o is willing to read about important history events because this is an amazing author.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Was the Gold Rush? by Joan Holub does a nice job of explaining the gold rush in California. It also states that there were earlier gold rushes in the east and others after the 1849 California Gold Rush. The author describes the tools and equipment used by prospectors to mine for gold and silver. She also explains the processes from panning to other larger-scale operations including industrial scale operations done by larger companies. Facts are provided to explain the contribution of gold rushes in the development of new towns and cities that sprang up near areas where mining activity attracted increasing populations. This was a major contributor to America's westward expansion and supported its claim on these lands. This book was well written and very informative and I found it to be quite interesting and a relatively quick read. I found the illustrations and photos helpful in understanding many things about the Gold Rush.

[Chrysanthemum · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 out of 5 stars

this was a pretty interesting book to read. i learned a lot. my favorite fact from here is probably that levi's (like the jeans company) started out during the californian gold rush. this was also interesting because i did not realize how many things originated during the gold rush or happened because of it. i could connect it to a lot of other pieces of media i consumed before, so that was nice too.

the reasoning for such a low rating is that it wasnt entertaining enough for me. the book was not hooking me in and i kept zoning out. i also dnfed it for a long time twice, and it is unlike me to do that with such short books. you should read this despite my low rating, though. it really helps you learn a lot. it also gives quite a bit of background info on america, and it helped me understand the us better.

[Mona · Rating 5 out of 5]

What was the Gold Rush? This picture book is a great start to inform students in 3rd or 4th about the role of gold in putting California state on the map. This book was well written and very educational, it was very interesting and a quite quick read as well. The illustration had a huge role in helping to picture the events and the hard circumstance that people had to live through. I loved how it included maps explaining the route of the immigrates and how the south become crowded and alive. It contains a lot of information starting from how and why 300000 people left their house to how the majority of the people didn’t get rich and how many people died in the process. This is my first time learning about the gold rush and was quite the experience.

[Erin Becker]

Generally a good introduction to the history of the California Gold Rush (and touches on other gold and silver rushes). Discusses social and environmental impacts of rapid "settling" and destructive mining practices. Even touches a bit on Chinese gold minors, and the roles of women in mining camps, which are often forgotten in these histories.

Up until the last few pages this was going to be a five stars from me, but then i came across this gem.

P. 95 "when James Marshall first found gold at the lumber mill [1848] only about 30,000 people lived in California."

P. 97 "In 1848, there were 150,000 Native Americans in California."

🤬🤬🤬

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

The HQ series is one of the most popular series in my school library collection. The books are roughly 100 pages, so they are not a quick read for most students. They have all the desired text features of non-fiction taught by our teachers. This title has 11 chapters, timelines (Gold Rush and World), bibliography, and includes photos and images of signs that directly connect to the text. Instead of fact boxes, this book has short sections with more details like What is Gold and The Panama Canal that offer more details to allow for better understanding of the material. I will certainly add this book to my library collections.

[Yuuki Nakashima · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to learn about the gold rush because San Francisco is my favorite city, so I picked up this book. This book was a perfect level for me who had just a brief knowledge of the gold rush. Most of the stories were new for me!

Since it’s basically a children’s book, it has several simple maps to explain the routes to California and Oregon from other states. It’s foreigner-friendly! Even if you are not familiar with the geography of the states, those maps help you.

[Hassan Alsalami · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story I read is called “What Was the Gold Rush” by Joan Holub, this book is about who found the first gold in the gold rush and how it spread all throughout America. The book teaches us about how many people from the east ran to the west in hopes of getting rich from the gold, and the president allowed that but there are pros and cons to that. I think this book is just right for my level and recommend this to anyone wanting to learn about the gold rush.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is this book about:
this book is about in 1848 when the native American lands were taken away and the animals were killed by the prospectors


The things that I like about the gold rush:
I like the gold rush book because I learn about the chines people when they come to America to dig for gold and how the native American was treated.

[Coco Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good historical resource for studying the gold rush of California. Some of the pacing within the chapter sequences and even between paragraphs felt choppy. However, I did like the inclusion of photographs from the time period, especially the inclusion of Chinese immigrants and African Americans that partook in the gold rush.

[Fallon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great if you’re looking to learn as much information as possible about the California Gold Rush as fast as possible. This was a clear and concise guide and summary of what all took place during that time as well as the immediate years thereafter. As someone who grew up in Placerville near Coloma this was an especially intriguing read.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very well written and easy to read book. I had my 5th and 6th graders read this book to themselves as we are studying this time period. I read it to myself and thought it was so interesting! My kids loved it as well. Great illustrations as well!

[Tommy P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book because it tells me what I want to know about the gold rush. I would recommend this book for anyone who likes to learn about it. If you like other biographies you will like this because it is very similar. Someone finds something read to find out

[Valentin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great because it has a lot of pictures that further enhances comprehension about the Gold Rush. It also explains other gold rush events that had happened in various parts of the country prior and after the California gold rush.