Gold Rush Girl by Avi

Gold Rush Girl by Avi. Candlewick Press, 2020. Historical fiction.
In 1848 Providence, Rhode Island, young Victoria Blaisdell longs for adventure and to be out from under Aunt Lavinia's stern instructions on how to be a proper young woman. When her father decides to go to California to search for gold, Victoria and her younger brother, Jacob, go, too. Sickly Mother stays behind, hoping to join them later.

In California, Tory finds not only adventure, but danger, friends, work, and a new sense of identity and self- worth. Jacob disappears and only Tory, Sam, and Thad (a Mod Squad team of teenagers if ever there was one) may be able to find him and rescue him from a kidnapping in time to save his life. The ending is neatly tied up so that young readers can enjoy the danger, but, yet not be too scared. Tweens will probably want to read more about early California, the gold rush, and earthquakes.

No one does adventure better than Avi. The pacing, the historic details, and the narrative itself move the story. The characters themselves have interesting back stories and skills that contribute to the plot. Senor Rosales even teaches Tory a good bit of Spanish! So many people abandoned their ships to rush to the gold fields that Rotten Row became an area of floating, disintegrating ships. Avi ties the locations in with a map of San Francisco and where such ships have been found.