"Bo had two fathers and no mothers, and after she got the fathers, she got a brother too. But not in the usual way." Nothing about her family is unusual to Bo, and everything is wonderfully matter-of-fact, in Kirkpatrick Hill's sparkling chapter book set in an Alaska mining town in the 1920s. Five-year-old Bo is being raised by the two men who took her in after her mother, a "good-time girl," gave her up as a baby. Arvid, a Swede, and Jack, an African American, love Bo like she's their own, because she is. They are a tight-knit family and part of the tight-knit community of miners, Eskimos, and others in their small frontier town. Bo loves nothing more than having her fathers tell stories, especially when they're stories about her. But she also helps them cook for the miners, plays with her Eskimo friends, and goes visiting. Each chapter is a vignette with its own dramatic arc in this marvelous choice for reading aloud with a cast of memorable characters. Humor, adventure, and lots of love abound in a book that gives a sense of the challenges of living in such a remote place, and that affirms the essential idea that a family is defined first and foremost by love. (Ages 6-8)

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.