Washoe County Library System

"For fans of Ian McGuire's The North Water and Michael Punke's The Revenant, Child in the Valley by Gordy Sauer is a coming-of-age story set in the harsh landscape of Gold Rush America, centering on a orphan's journey to California in a wagon train of ruthless 49ers. Seventeen-year-old Joshua Gaines is suddenly orphaned in 1849, and after discovering that his foster father has left him deeply in debt, he flees his St. Louis home for Independence,...

As her family travels by wagon train to Oregon, a young girl gathers scraps of cloth so that she can make a quilt. Includes historical note.

A unique look at the Donner Party's struggle for survival as powerful snow storms during the winter of 1847 trap 81 California-bound pioneers in the high Sierra.

Presents a collection of accounts which demonstrate the passion and courage of the nineteenth-century pioneering women who led and followed their families into the West, pursuing dreams of better economic or social situations.

Presents a collection of accounts which demonstrate the passion and courage of the nineteenth-century pioneering women who led and followed their families into the West, pursuing dreams of better economic or social situations.

Charts the journey of those who followed the Oregon Trail in the first half of the nineteenth century, describes the obstacles and dangers they encountered, and discusses the Trail's eventual decline with the introduction of the cross-country railroad.

Presents a collection of accounts which demonstrate the passion and courage of the nineteenth-century pioneering women who led and followed their families into the West, pursuing dreams of better economic or social situations.