Jane FloryCritiques

Originally published in 1950 by Wonder Books.

Decent read aloud-trim size is small. Rabbit family adopts a bear, then he becomes too big for their house.

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.

This is a wonderful "old" book that my 9-year old daughter bought at a library for .50 cents. I dreaded the day soon after when she chose this book to be the one we would begin reading nightly for story time before bed. Afterall, the chapters are long, (longer than I can read aloud in 5 minutes), there are few illustrations, none in color, and well it's "old" book written about a place in time even older. I groaned as I began. And now, just two chapters away from the finish, I'm completely captivated by this wonderful story full of triumph and victory for those that the society at the time would sooner forget. If you happen to chance upon this book at a library sale, or a yard sale or thrift store, you're in for a treat if you choose to buy it. My daughter bought it for .50 cents. I've found it available from various sources on the web from $4 - $5.95 . But if something were to ever happen to our copy, I'd seek to replace it and be willing to pay much more! It's that good of a story!