Away to the Goldfields!

Some things are more precious than gold

Stubborn, spirited Molly Malarky embarks on a life-altering adventure as she and her brother flee their miserable New Hampshire farm on the trail of their widower father, who abandoned them during the first months of the California gold rush. Traveling from Boston, to Panama, across the isthmus, and up the Pacific coast, they find that no part of the journey is easy. Cheats and scalawags abound, the distances are enormous, and unhealthy conditions are inescapable. And for a young woman trying to make headway alongside hundreds of desperate men -- her greedy, bad-tempered, and chauvinistic brother included -- the journey is overwhelming.

In this stirring historical story, resourceful Molly is never defeated as she heads west to stake a claim that is bigger and more personal than she ever imagined.