American Girl History Mysteries

Swept up in the great gold rush of 1897, 12-year old Hetty McKinley heads north with her papa and her dashing uncle Donall. Even though she is not nearly as excited as her father about leaving behind their life in San Francisco, Hetty plans to use the experience to get started on her dream of becoming a writer.

The beloved American Girl History Mysteries features intrepid girls faced with intriguing situations. The author of this installment, Kathryn Reiss, has received the ALA Best Book for Young Adults Award. In Riddle of the Prairie Bride, it's 1878 and Ida Deming and her papa are looking forward to meeting his mail-order bride. But is this woman really who she claims to be?

Before Pam's father left to fight in World War I, the two of them trained their pigeons to fly home at night, a time when most birds just want to sleep. This interests a stranger with a foreign accent who comes to town and offers to pay a lot of money for Pam's birds. But when Pam refuses to sell and some of her birds are later stolen, she suspects the stranger may be more than a simple bird enthusiast. He may be an enemy spy!

Having fled the turmoil of Scotland, Elspeth Monro is learning to love her life in 1775 North Carolina. She likes her new friend and her weaving apprenticeship. But as Loyalists and Patriots strive to recruit her neighbors, a shadowy figure threatens her family.

In order for Suzette's papa to stay with his Ojibwe family year round, he must win the fur-trapping competition at Fort LaPointe Island in Lake Superior. But a troublemaker is sabotaging the competition-and making it seem like her papa's fault! To keep her family together, Suzette must use both her French and Ojibwe heritage to solve a dangerous mystery in this thrilling mix of historical fact and fiction.

In the immediate aftermath of the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, 12-year-old Clara and her family find an abandoned baby, apparently orphaned in the quake, on the steps of their boarding house home. But Clara suspects that something about the baby is not as it seems. Following her suspicions through a city consumed with fire and devastation, Clara discovers that while the earthquake has brought out the best in some people, it has brought out the worst in others.