Publisher's Synopsis
CERRO GORDO STORYBOOK is a collection of 40 short stories about coming of age in a silver mining town. Cerro Gordo Storybook takes actual people and places from 1870 Inyo County, California and turns them into short stories for the middle grades and talented younger readers. Indians, silver mining, desert life, and wild animal encounters are subjects of short stories that are not only entertaining, but each story also contains a moral lesson. Young people had it hard in this small mining town where hazards made growing up a daily adventure. But they found fun and interesting things to do in a town of 4,000 perched on a mountain. Very little water, deep snow, and living one mile high above the Mojave Desert was a mixture for adventure and danger - things that spiced up young lives growing up in the Wild West.
These 40 stories use real people of Cerro Gordo's rich history - with their photos and background information in the back of the book. Also in the back of the book is a teacher's reference that provides readability information and the word count for each story. This helps parents to challenge both good and struggling readers by level of difficulty. Stories are short and end on a positive note often with a morals lesson.
