Stories of California

This collection presents straightforward, child-oriented sketches of California's early exploration and settlement, tracing legends of the land, Spanish mission efforts and missionary figures, later American claims and a brief independent republic, and the frenetic gold discoveries that transformed the region. Subsequent chapters describe mining methods, overland travel and railroad building, development of farms, orchards and citrus cultivation, timber and big-tree country, native peoples, local wildlife and birds, maritime life, and notable cities and natural sights, while combining physical description with human events to introduce young readers to the state's landscape and history.