I Am Lavina Cumming
Young Readers

I Am Lavina Cumming

A Novel of the American West
By
Susan Lowell
“A wonderful story … Warm, sturdy, balanced and suspenseful.” —NATALIE BABBITT
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Lavina Cumming has spent her entire first ten years of life on the Bosque Ranch in Arizona Territory, but when her mother dies, she must go live with her aunt in Santa Cruz, California.

Armed with the Cumming family motto, “Courage,” Lavina starts off at dawn on September 16, 1905, leaving behind everything that is familiar. She arrives in a world of two-story houses, automobiles, a new school, and her cousin, “awful Aggie.” Trying her best to settle in, Lavina is as shocked as everyone else by the great earthquake that nearly demolishes the nearby city of San Francisco. In the aftermath of the quake, she must make a big decision about her future.

Based on the true story of the author’s grandmother, I Am Lavina Cumming offers a compelling look at life in early twentieth-century California and a girl struggling to find her place there.

ISBN
9781571316554
Publish Date
Pages
208
Dimensions
5.25 × 8 × 0.625 in
Weight
7.8 oz
Cover Art

Praise and Prizes

  • “I Am Lavina Cumming is a wonderful story—everything a first-rate book should be—warm, sturdy, balanced and suspenseful, with real characters and things to say that are worth saying. I know I would have loved it when I was Lavina’s age.”

    Natalie Babbitt
    author of Tuck Everlasting

  • “This lovely novel … supplies the deep kind of pleasure I remember feeling when I first read the Little House books in childhood. This novel is one of the best I’ve read in years.”

    Minneapolis Star Tribune

  • “The power of good fiction shines brightly in this story. Young readers are sure to leap easily across time into Lavina Cumming’s shoes—she’s so likeable!—and with that leap, history will come alive.”

    Tom Birdseye
    author of Attack of the Mutant Underwear

  • “Susan Lowell’s descriptive narrative provides a detailed sense of setting and an accurate depiction of life in the early twentieth century.”

    Horn Book

  • “In this delightful book Susan Lowell incorporates the art of storytelling into her tale.”

    Children’s Literature

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