Title: The Great Gold Rush Adventure
Author: Kyle Griffith
Major Themes: Gold Rush, Canada, Yukon, Klondike, Seattle, Washington
Synopsis: When he chases a dog onto a steamship while trying to retrieve his lunchbox, Walter finds himself on the way to the Yukon Territory during a gold rush!
My children and I enjoyed reading The Great Gold Rush Adventure together a couple of days ago, and I was pleased that evening when they described the story to the older children at the dinner table. You know a book is memorable when they talk about it later! Something that made this book even more interesting than it already was is that we read a book a year or two ago about the same gold rush, and they were remembering things that were in that book, and also this one.
A dog stole Walter’s lunch box one day, and in chasing him down, Walter inadvertently ended up on board the steamship Portland, bound for the Yukon gold fields. A miner took the boy in hand, and they made their way to the Klondike. Along the way, they had to beware of pickpockets and scammers—and would they make a fortune when they reached their goal, or be like so many others who lost everything?
The pictures in this book are wonderful! They are full-color, realistic paintings, with so much detail in them that you could spend a lot of time studying them. In fact, after we read the story, we went back through and looked at the pictures for a second time. One picture of the Portland has a couple of cutaway sections, so we can see inside the hold. It shows the provisions and the engine room. The historical notes at the end of the book made us quite curious about some of the pictures, and we had fun looking for the details that were mentioned. In fact, those historical notes are very good—they fill in the gaps and tell the rest of the story that can’t be fit into the picture book story.
The Great Gold Rush Adventure is a beautiful book that I would love to have on our shelf. I know my 2-year-old would claim it as her own and read it over and over, since it has a dog pictured on almost every page! It is one that the older children would sit and study whenever it was left laying around, too.
I received a review copy of this book from NetGalley, and these are my honest thoughts about it.
No warnings!
Age levels:
Listening Level—Ages 5 – 8
Reading Independently—Ages 7 – 9, 8 – 12
Links to buy this book:
Amazon: Hardcover
AbeBooks: View Choices on AbeBooks.com
Book Depository: Hardcover
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