Rhyolite: The True Story of a Ghost Town [Hardcover]

Diane Siebert (Author), David Frampton (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

Long ago, in a proud desert town named Rhyolite, businesses thrived and children played and people had dreams that were big and grand. But Rhyolite survived only a few years before those dreams were dashed and the desert reclaimed the town. Now the streets are populated by laughing coyotes and the ghosts of happier times. What happened to this once-prosperous place? In fluent, compelling verse, this unusual and witty picture book tells the story of the rise and fall of a real-life Nevada town built near the site of a famous 1904 gold strike. Dramatic woodcuts by David Frampton bring this haunting tale of a ghost town stunningly to life. Author’s note.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4-The rapid rise and demise of a Nevada gold-mining town is recounted in Siebert's narrative verse and enhanced by Frampton's colorful woodcuts. Each spread features a page of text framed by a detailed border opposite a full-page illustration. Frampton has creatively extended Siebert's rhythmic text by placing desert creatures, including coyotes, lizards, and scorpions, around pages describing the arrival of the first two prospectors in the area in 1904. The art accompanying the lines "Word traveled fast. More people came/-Soon families and their friends arrived./A little town was born and thrived" features people traveling by covered wagon, stage coach, and early automobile, one miner walking and pushing a wheelbarrow filled with tools, and a group riding in on horseback. As the mines grow and the town expands, the pictures of workers become reminiscent of WPA mural art. In many woodcuts, the coyotes, which figure prominently in the poem as bemused onlookers that "watched with laughing eyes" and "knew what coyotes know," gaze heavenward at swirling stars or earthward at humans panning for gold or erecting power lines. When the town's boom years come to an end and the inhabitants move on, the borders feature a landscape littered with broken crockery, discarded mining implements, and ghosts. A wonderful example of a well-crafted picture book.
Ginny Gustin, Sonoma County Library System, Santa Rosa, CA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 2-4, younger for reading aloud. Handsome woodcuts are the highlight of this rhyming story about the boomtown of Rhyolite, which sprang up almost overnight in 1904 after two men discovered gold in southwestern Nevada. The population quickly reached 10,000, then dwindled to almost nothing in a few years, following a financial panic. Frampton's woodcuts, more intricate than much of his previous work, suit the historical tale with their rustic feeling and glowing palette of oranges, browns, and golds. The full-page pictures and attractive borders around the boxed text convey information about the time and place. There's also a nod to multiculturalism, though the characters are, unfortunately, depicted stereotypically: an Asian worker has yellowish skin and a Native American has reddish skin. Siebert's verses bounce listeners from the discovery of gold, through the town's growth that brought a symphony and tennis courts, to a ghost town with crumbling buildings. The iambic tetrameter couplets grow monotonous and occasionally awkward, detracting from the impact of a story that some children will find quite fascinating. Kathleen Odean
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Clarion Books; First edition (April 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618096736
• ISBN-13: 978-0618096732
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #792,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Addition, March 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Rhyolite: The True Story of a Ghost Town (Hardcover)

This is an interesting, well written, rhyming story about the formation and demise of a town in Neveda in 1904 in response to a gold rush. The woodcut illustrations are beautiful. It is a useful book to teach a child about the concept of a ghost town, something my six year old son, who has been raised on the East Coast and Midwest, had no idea existed.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A jewel of a book, May 1, 2006

By 

LaCuerva "kromobile" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rhyolite: The True Story of a Ghost Town (Hardcover)

After I stood and read this book in the Visitor Center at Furnace Creek (Death Valley), I knew I had to go out to Rhyolite and see the ghost town. The exceptional woodcuts by David Frampton evoke the beginning of the 20th century in a Nevada boom town; the coyotes, emblematic of the natural world that cannot be kept at bay by this unnatural town, weave in and out of the story like the haunting refrain of a ballad.
Unlike another reviewer, I found the couplets charming, witty, and not tedious at all. The internal rhymes, alliteration and striking similies (rooms/...like open, sunlit tombs) made the story exceedingly memorable.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Coyotes Know, July 11, 2011

By 

Ohioan - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rhyolite: The True Story of a Ghost Town (Hardcover)

What a beautiful book, both in the rhymes that tell a story and in the woodcuts that capture the remains of the Old West: 1904, to be exact, when two miners struck gold and the boomtown of Rhyolite, Nevada, sprang up. Four years later, 10,000 people with all their accoutrements deserted the town in a matter of weeks. Banks failed, businesses went bust, and the desert began its work . . . as the coyotes sensed it would. This is a book worth reading aloud, worth studying for meaning and illustrations. If I'm ever in Nevada, I would want to visit the ghost town of Rhyolite just because of this book.