Customer Reviews

Seeds of Hope: The Gold Rush Diary of Susanna Fairchild, California Territory 1849 (Dear America Series)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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It is January, 1849. Fourteen-year-old Susanna Fairchild, her father, and her sixteen-year-old sister Clara are on board a ship, almost to the end of their long sea voyage from New York to Oregon, when they hear news of a gold strike in California. Susanna's desperate father, grieving after the death of his wife and nearly penniless after losing all his money, abandons his plan of establishing a medical practice in Oregon and decides to mine for gold in the hope of gaining back the money he lost. Writing in the diary left behind by her mother, Susanna describes life in a rough-and-tumble mining camp and the dangers she and Clara face when they are left alone for weeks at a time. But in spite of the many hardships they face, the two sisters grow closer and experience the joys of finding new friends and their first loves. I highly reccomend this book to all fans of the Dear America series. Kristiana Gregory has written a beautiful story about a family that faces many losses but manages to grow stronger, not from the riches that they struggle to find, but through the love they share. This has quickly become my favorite book in the Dear America series.

I loved Susanna's diary,in 1849 fourteen-year-old Susanna and her family including her parents and her sixteen-year-old sister Clara, are traveling from New York City to Oregen, so that her father can establish a medical practice.While traveling Susanna and her family experience a horrible, emotional blow. While on the trip a storm hits in the chaos of it all, her mother goes overboard and drowns,along with the money they saved for years.When the ship decides to let off miners in California, her father desperate and willing to do anything, he decides to mine and regain all the money he lost, and then follow his dream again. Writing in the diary her beloved mother left behind Susanna records of the ruff and tough camps they live in and the wilderness and the danger of being left alone for weeks at a time.Despite it all they have bad times, the sisters grow closer and make thier relationship work, they make new friends like Rosa Sepulveda, a young girl from Peru who is traveling with her Husband and 7 brothers to California to become rich.They discover secerts about people they thought they knew and could trust be were betrayed and hurt. They find thier first loves.I recommed this Dear America book to anyone, Kristianna Gregory has captured the true feelings of a family and the hardships they faced in the west, and despite all the hard times, family and friends are always there to help and plant the seeds of hope within you.

It's 1849, and the Gold Rush has begun. Susanna, her sister, and her father are off to California in the search for gold and the competition is ablaze. Susanna wants her family to find gold, too, but she also doesn't want her family to forget about the love they must share with each as a family. Along the way, she must confront her feelings, even as the craze for gold increases. There are more dangers to her family other than the loss of money, and Susanna must react bravely to whatever happens. Will she and her family be victorious in the Gold Rush, and will their family values fade? Seeds Of Hope is a well --written and nice addition to the Dear America series by Kristiana Gregory. It wasn't the best in the series, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Seeds of Hope (California Gold Rush) / 0-590-51157-2

Once again, the Dear America formula has rendered complex and difficult history into an entertaining and personal portrayal. When Susanna's mother dies en route to Oregon, her grieving father turns to gold fever to dull his loss and Susanna and family turn gold miners. In this way, Susanna is able to note carefully the follies of those stricken with gold fever and is able to describe, in detail, how the only people who reliably struck it rich were those who provided services and goods to these fever-struck hopefuls.

My favorite aspect of the Dear America books - their even-handedness - is displayed beautifully here, with Susanna distressed by the fact that immigrants and Mexicans are discriminated against and murdered for their gold claims, with no legal recourse. A fine line is walked with the treatment of the narrator's father - although he is clearly very foolish to run after a goose chase and drag his daughters along after him into danger (they are the only two women in a mining camp of hundreds of lonely men!), nevertheless his love for his daughters is clear and he is portrayed as a good, kind man who learns when enough gold is enough.

Several hangings and murders occur here, including the hanging of a "dancing lady" from town. Although it's abundantly clear that the lady is a local prostitute, the book is careful to define her only as a dancer and entertainer. Children may wonder what money was to be had in dancing on the frontier... Also be aware that the narrator's love interest loses his leg in a mining explosion, and has to have the bone sawed through by her physician father. The scene is rushed through fairly quickly, but may be disturbing for small children.

~ Ana Mardoll

Seeds of Hope: The Gold Rush Diary Of Susanna Fairchild is a very interesting and exciting Dear America book. Kristiana Gregory is the author of this book, and is also the author of three other Dear America books. Seeds of Hope gives a good description of what it was like to live near a mining town in 1949. It shows Susanna's thoughts and feelings concerning the object that brought so many miners here - gold.

In October of 1848, Susanna, 14, and her older sister, Clara, 16, sail with their parents to Oregon to settle there. Her family is stricken with grief when her mother dies in a tragic sea accident, and her father loses all his money. When they hear that gold has just been found in California, her father decides to try mining. Clara and Susanna live in a cabin and experience what gold can do to people. For example, they get cheated of their gold by her father's best friend, and robbed of their money by a stranger. But in all these hardships they find wonderful things to laugh about and enjoy, including when they find their first loves. This challenging time brings the sisters closer together, as they try to survive through the many hardships and find comfort with each other. Through the pages of her diary, Susanna gives a great depiction of what it was like to live in a place where there is no law.

Seeds of Hope is longer then some of the other Dear America books, consisting of 186 pages. After the diary, there is the epilogue and then a historical note. The historical note tells all about the gold rush: how it started, who came, how they got there, and what happened to the people who were part of it. In addition, there are pictures in the back of the book depicting miners, a miner's machine (a rocker), the interior and exterior of a ship which brought miners to the gold fields, and a recipe for Miner's Griddle Cakes. There is also a map of the many different routes men took to get to California, and the words to a popular gold miner's song - Clementine.

This book is excellent for young adults because it is very well written, and describes what it was like to live in California during America's gold rush. I learned a lot from this book, including how miners panned for gold in the freezing water of the gold streams, how people took the law into their own hands because there were no sheriffs, and how the miners would have a bull fight a bear and bet on the winner. I especially admired the way Susanna always had hope, even when things went wrong - a wonderful example of how we should act today.

Susanna Fairchild and her family were supposed to go to Oregon and start a new life there, but when Susanna's mother dies all plans go astray. Susanna's father (who was a surgeon) suddenly has the gold rush fever and there plans of goind to Oregon fade away. Susanna and her sister, Clara, find this very difficult, as there is very few women at the mining camps and lots of the miners are bad men. Susanna worries greatly for her father because the tough work of looking for gold might overwhelm him. In many of the entries Susanna remembers her mother and what life would be if she was still alive. Through each entry Susanna regains seeds of hope.

This wonderful historical-fiction book has a little romance mixed
with fascinating information. "Seeds of Hope" is-without a doubt-
the best Dear America Book in the series. I would recommend this book because the entries are fairly long and very interesting. I
learned a lot from this book and it was still a very good book.

I really liked Seeds of Hope. It's an exciting story about the Gold Rush. I like all of the Dear America Books I've read so far. Especially the ones written by Kristiana Gregory. I liked the way the writer ties her stories together.

This book is incredible! It has a fascinating story line and gives a sad but accurate picture of what the gold rush was like. In a way, it also studies human nature and how greed can corrupt even the nicest of people. It was nearly impossible to put down and I would give it many, many more stars if that were possible!

It was still making me think. This book is as close to a real portrayal of the gold rush as I have ever seen. It is an amazing book. It is a historical fiction and it is about a girl that is fourteen (hey I'm 14, too!) and she has already experienced the greatest loss that I girl can face. She has lost her mother. And in the most horrid way as well! This girl, Susana Fairchild, has suffered through things at 14 that most of the world now suffers at 40 and other things that most people never suffer. The setting of this story is 1840's California. I liked this book for many reasons but my favorite part is actually the entire last half of the story when she and Sam fall in love.