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    Bo at Ballard Creek
    Bo at Ballard Creek
    Bo at Ballard Creek
    Ebook245 pages2 hours

    Bo at Ballard Creek

    By Kirkpatrick Hill and LeUyen Pham

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    About this ebook

    It's the 1920s, and Bo was headed for an Alaska orphanage when she won the hearts of two tough gold miners who set out to raise her, enthusiastically helped by all the kind people of the nearby Eskimo village.

    Bo learns Eskimo along with English, helps in the cookshack, learns to polka, and rides along with Big Annie and her dog team. There's always some kind of excitement: Bo sees her first airplane, has a run-in with a bear, and meets a mysterious lost little boy.
    Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill is an unforgettable story of a little girl growing up in the exhilarating time after the big Alaska gold rushes.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJun 18, 2013
    ISBN9780805098945
    Bo at Ballard Creek
    Author

    Kirkpatrick Hill

    Kirkpatrick Hill lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. She was an elementary school teacher for more than thirty years, most of that time in the Alaskan bush. Hill is the mother of six children and the grandmother of eight. Her books Toughboy and Sister, Winter Camp, and The Year of Miss Agnes have all been immensely popular. Her fourth book, Dancing at the Odinochka, was a Junior Library Guild Selection.

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    Reviews for Bo at Ballard Creek

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Fiction: Chapter Book Hill, Kirkpatrick Bo of Ballard Creek. MacMillan, 2013. 288p. Intermediate. This is a warm, delightful story of a little girl named Bo growing up in northern Alaska in the 1920”s, right after the Gold Rush. Two big-hearted ex-miners, Jack and Arvid, raise Bo with the help of the whole village. Bo has many adventures and learns about life, families, and love in this lyrical, quick-paced narrative tale. AK: Ask children if they have heard of the Gold Rush. What do they know about it? Have they been to an old Gold Rush town?
    • 3/5
      Personally, I thought the book was enjoyable but without a distinct plot or overarching issue. It seemed as though the book was one large introduction to a story that never unfolded.The book could be used in the classroom in the context of rural communities, diversity, family structure, or 1920s history.
    • 5/5
      This is extremely endearing, and one of the best middle readers I've picked up in a while. Bo is a little girl who lives in a small mining town in Alaska in the 1920s. The book is essentially a series of winsome anecdotes about various things that little kids get up to in a small mining town in Alaska ... and it's just so nicely written. It's been compared a lot to the Little House books, and I think that's fairly understandable in a few ways. The author, a native Alaskan, has said that some of the episodes are based on family stories. There are a lot of "this is how things worked in Ye Olden Days" explanations of what's going on, handled in a good way - they're straightforward, a kid can understand them, and they support the story. In terms of reading level, it feels right about par with Little House in the Big Woods/Little House on the Prairie, so it would work well as a read aloud for kids starting about age 4, and realistic for slightly older kids who are reading on their own. Unlike the Little House books, the Eskimo members of the community get a lot of airtime, and come across as individual people as opposed to a vague group of Eskimos.
    • 4/5
      Like "Little House in the Big Woods" only in Alaska.
    • 5/5
      Hill has written her most delightful children's book about Alaska. Bo has been "adopted" by two very unlikely parents. Her Papa Jack is a black cook at an Alaskan mine. Her Papa Arvid is a Swedish miner. Bo unconventional family includes not only her papas, but the other miners and the Eskimo village of Ballard Creek. Fans of The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder will see a bit of Laura in Bo. Best of all readers will see that families can be unconventional but if there is love, there is a family.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A delightful book about little Bo, her two adoptive dads, and their friends of Eskimos and miners in the waning days of the Alaskan gold rush. The details of mining life in a small remote town and daily Eskimo culture enrich these stories that are perfect for a family or classroom read-aloud. Everyone is neighborly and pitches in, and Bo and all the kids are raised by a multicultural village. I love LeUyen Pham's illustration work and her illustrations here are no exception, adding charm, personality and affection.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Bo at Ballard Creek - Kirkpatrick Hill

    CHAPTER TWO

    BO COMES TO BALLARD CREEK

    EVENING WAS BO’S favorite time of day, when Jack and Arvid were resting, the day’s work all done.

    This evening Bo was sitting at the long table with Arvid and Jack, cutting pictures out of old Montgomery Ward catalogs. Hank Redman was there too.

    Hank was the new marshal. He had come to the cookshack after supper to pass some time with Jack and Arvid. He probably hoped Jack would have cake left over from supper, too. He was staying at the roadhouse, and Milo, the roadhouse man, wasn’t famous for his cake.

    Bo had heard all the grown-ups talking about how they liked the new marshal. Mostly it was because he didn’t pay any attention to the stills. People around Ballard Creek made whiskey with stills since it was against the law to buy it.

    Only trouble with making your own whiskey was that it took lots of sugar, and sugar was expensive. Sometimes, if it had been a long time before the scow came with groceries, there wasn’t any sugar to be had at Milo’s store. Bo knew making whiskey was kind of bothersome, because the grown-ups at Ballard Creek had a lot to say about it.

    Hank Redman didn’t seem to know there were such things as stills, and sometimes he’d even have a glass of whiskey with one of the good-time girls. Since nothing against the law ever happened in Ballard Creek except making whiskey, Arvid said Hank had a damned easy job.

    While they talked, Bo cut out the tables and chairs and things from the furniture part of the catalog. Then she carefully pasted the cut-out furniture on the inside of the shoe box Jack had given her. That would be the house for her catalog people. She would cut the people out last because they were the hardest and sometimes the scissors wouldn’t behave, and her people ended up without hands or feet. Maybe Jack would cut them for her.

    The paste jar had a little brush inside attached to the lid, which she thought was a very good idea. When no one was looking, she’d get some paste on her finger and lick it off. It had a very interesting taste. It tasted white.

    New people like Hank didn’t know everything about everybody the way the people of Ballard Creek and the mining camp did. New people were always curious about Bo, which used to make her feel cross.

    Just imagine, explained Jack. Imagine someone seeing you for the first time with us two great big men, one red-faced Swede and one black. Got to stir up their curiosity. Would me!

    Hank was no different. He was curious, too. When they’d stopped talking about Woodrow Wilson and Gene Tunney, the boxer, Hank nodded his head at Bo. Tell me how you come to have this little one, he said.

    Bo looked up at Hank. My mama walked away. Like a turtle.

    Arvid laughed. It’s a long story.

    Good, said Hank.

    Well, I can tell you the short version, or the long one, said Arvid.

    Bo said, Tell it all the way through.

    Jack laughed and pinched her cheek. Bo likes to hear us tell this, because she’s the star of the story.

    Long is good, said Hank.

    Arvid went to the stove and picked up the coffeepot. Anyone else? Jack and Hank shook their heads, so Arvid poured the last of the coffee into his own cup. It was very thick and black. Arvid looked into the cup and said, Maybe not, and put his cup down.

    Tell him, said Bo.

    Arvid sat down at the table again.

    "Well, we was at Rampart, me and Jack—1924, that was. Kovich’d just gone bust. You ever meet

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