Boom Town - Softcover

Sonia Levitin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0439063094 ISBN 13: 9780439063098

Publisher: Scholastic Inc, 2000

Synopsis

Cat Bowman Smith and Sonia Levitin have teamed up again to bring the history of America's westward expansion to life in this fun, colorful picture book.

Bored by cabin life in the sparse settlement, Amanada figures out how to bake a gooseberry pie in the family's crude wood stove. Soon prospectors are paying for her pies, and her business success spills over to the other folks who've decided to settle there.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 4?This charming companion to Nine for California (Orchard, 1996) shows how a California gold-rush town prospered and grew, all thanks to one girl's gooseberry pies. Amanda and her family arrive when the town is just "a stage stop, a pump house, a few log cabins." As her father pans for gold each day, Amanda becomes bored. She digs up an old skillet, picks some berries, and bakes a "hard as a rock" pie in the old wood stove. A few tries later, she gets it right and things start to change. After Pa sells slices to the miners in the gold fields. Amanda gets her brothers to pitch in and expands her pie productions. The fun really starts when she convinces various travelers to stay in town and share their skills. As other craftsmen settle in, the girl's pie business blossoms in the now-thriving town. Amanda's Pa finally gives up the gold-panning life and joins his daughter in the bakery. Now she'll have time for the new school that everyone helped build. Watercolor illustrations capture the lively and humorous spirit of the story. Facial expressions are particularly well drawn, conveying the warmth of family and community amid the chaos of the boom town. Amanda's narration lends just the right touch of humor to an authentic, though exaggerated look at the development of the West. Young readers will particularly enjoy the way the girl subtly manipulates so many adults into contributing to the town's amazing growth.?Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, OR
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

0-531-33043-5 The companion to the credibility-straining Nine for California (1996), this is a deeply satisfying story starring a resourceful heroine whose real-life counterpart is mentioned in a tiny historical footnote. Amanda and her family settle in a cabin while her father trudges off each week to prospect for gold. Even with a tumble of siblings, though, Amanda is bored until she figures out a way to do what she loves best: bake a pie. When Pa comes home and says he made 25 cents a slice from her gooseberry pie, Amanda begins to bake in earnest. But that's not all she does. She convinces a peddler to set up a trading post, encourages a prospector to open a laundry, and a cowboy to set up a livery stable. The town grows, enough for Pa to go into business with his daughter and for Amanda to think about schooling as well as pie. Smith's detailed watercolors are full of charm: Amanda's red ribbons match her gingham dress, a baby sister sleeps on a ferocious- looking bearskin rug in the cabin, and expressive, cartoony characters festoon the western landscape. It's fun to watch the town grow, spread by spread, and a map and a recipe for gooseberry pie grace the endpapers. Levitin and Smith provide a grand look at the hows and whys behind a town's growth; of course it didn't happen exactly this way--but it might have. (Picture book. 5-9) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Scholastic Inc
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0439063094
• ISBN 13: 9780439063098
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Cat Bowman Smith