Boom Town [Hardcover]

Sonia Levitin (Author), 2at Bowman Smith (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1998 | Age Level: 5 and up

"Bored by cabin life in the sparse settlement, Amanda figures out how to bake a gooseberry pie in the family's crude wood stove. Soon the prospectors are paying for her pies, and her business success spills over onto other folks, who decide to settle there.... [An] entertaining lesson in history and human nature." - The Horn Book

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this sequel to Nine for California, Levitin and Smith mine a nugget of American history and turn it into picture book gold. Young Amanda's family has survived the three-week stagecoach trip to California and now the boisterous brood is putting down roots near the gold fields, where Pa pans for a fortune. Eager to make the best of their conditions, Amanda improvises with primitive equipment to turn out pies that she can sell to the miners. When she expands and buys more pans, she recommends to the peddler that he set up a trading post, and the boom begins. Soon she's suggesting that others start a laundry, a livery and other businesses that result in a bustling town. Sparked by a historical report of a "young lady" who earned $11,000 selling pies, this spunky story makes information about westward expansion pulse with fun. Smith's rollicking, dusty-toned watercolors capture the energy of a developing town and convey the can-do spirit of adventurous settlers. Readers inspired by Amanda's success may want to try the gooseberry pie recipe on the endpapers. Ages 5-9.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0531300439
• ISBN-13: 978-0531300435
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 9.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #429,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My life is mainly devoted to friends and family, my writing and my home. I enjoy hiking in the mountains, especially with my dogs. You can see their pics on my web page, and also pics of my family andfriends. I like to traveling to interesting places. I've been to Europe, parts of Asia, Hawaii, and many beautiful places in the U.S. My most exciting new project is working with a great team on creating a musical based on my novel The Return. We plan the premier in fall, 2006, and now we're casting and soon going into rehearsal.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wild West, April 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Boom Town (Library Binding)

This book is a very good example for little girls, because it shows a girl in the role of the main character who is very intelligent and thinks for herself. Amanda opens up shop selling pies to the miners in a California boom town and has quite a successfull business very quickly. Unlike many historical fiction stories where the main girl character is portrayed almost as a goody-two-shoes, Amanda has a style completely her own. She pulls the reader into the story and keeps them intereted the entire way through (no easy task when the target audience is in the preschool to second grade age group).

I should also mention that this is the second book in a series about Amanda and her family, and I feel that all of the books keep the same lively attitude as this one. Since this book is part of a series, it is possible that younger children could get confused if they are read out of order, so the people who read to them should keep that in mind. I think that these books, when used in a classroom setting, would be a very good segue into a unit on the Wild West or pioneers, especially since they portray girls and women as having minds of thier own and not just as extensions of their families.

This is especially important because many books about the Old West are focused more on boys, and these books have a girl for the main character. All in all, I would recommend this book without any hesitation and I consider it to be a very strong sequel to a powerful first book.

5.0 out of 5 stars well done, March 18, 2009

By 

Rachel Roach "4th grade teacher" (palmdale, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Boom Town (Paperback)

Love this book. It parallels the growth of even a modern city- from a town to a full size city and shows kids how businesses grow from simple ideas and needs. Kids love the concept.