The Golden Venture is my favorite book about the California gold rush in 1849. Written and illustrated by master story teller Jane Flory, The Golden Venture tells the story of a man and his eleven-year-old daughter's journey from Missouri to San Francisco; his dream is to earn his freedom from debt to a relative; hers, to stay with her father no matter what. His search for gold is not delved into; however, the life she providentially falls into in San Francisco is: helping bake hard tack to sell, fending off gangsters - luckily she's a crack shot with her squirrel rifle - and eventually, making a residence and bakery with an assortment of other good people on an abandoned ship in the harbor. The Golden Venture, along with dozens of other ships had entire crews, right down to the captain, abandon them, not even unloading the cargo, in their fever to get to the gold fields, hence the handy availability of a ship no one wants. Many interesting relationships occur in the story, difficult ones, friendships, even some love interests. Chapters are eleven to fifteen pages long, quite manageable when I read this book aloud to my eleven-year-old daughter. She loved it as much as I did. ( )