Araminta's Paint Box, by Karen Ackerman is the story of a family in 1847 who migrates west from Boston to California because the dad is a doctor. On the way, they stop to see the doctor's brother in Pennsylvania. The doctor's brother gives the doctor's daughter, Araminta, a beautiful paint box. However, along the way the wagon wheel breaks and many things fall out. A family helps them but nobody puts the paint box back in the wagon! Eventually the son finds the paint box, then the dad uses it as a tool box... The paint box keeps traveling from person to person until it finally finds it's way to a gold digger in California who gets bitten by a snake. When he sees the doctor, he offers to pay him in gold but all the doctor wants is the box he keeps the gold in so he can make his daughter, Araminta, a paint box like the one she lost.
I thought this book was cute and sweet. It also told students about the types of people who would have been traveling across the United States at the time of the California Gold rush. It told about a variety of people and events in a variety of settings, while still keeping with the solid storyline. This book was easy to follow and would be a good story if talking about westward migration in the United States as a way to discuss what type of people were going west. I think that students would enjoy this book. I know I did!
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