Searching for Silverheels
Searching for Silverheels
Searching for Silverheels
A girl’s search for the truth about a legendary woman teaches her a lot about what bravery and loyalty really mean in this gorgeous novel from the author of Katerina’s Wish.In her small Colorado town Pearl spends the summers helping her mother run the family café and entertaining tourists with the legend of Silverheels, a beautiful dancer who nursed miners through a smallpox epidemic in 1861 and then mysteriously disappeared. According to lore, the miners loved her so much they named their mountain after her. Pearl believes the tale is true, but she is mocked by her neighbor, Josie, a suffragette campaigning for women’s right to vote. Josie says that Silverheels was a crook, not a savior, and she challenges Pearl to a bet: prove that Silverheels was the kindhearted angel of legend, or help Josie pass out the suffragist pamphlets that Pearl thinks drive away the tourists. Not to mention driving away handsome George Crawford. As Pearl looks for the truth, darker forces are at work in her small town. The United States’s entry into World War I casts suspicion on German immigrants, and also on anyone who criticizes the president during wartime—including Josie. How do you choose what’s right when it could cost you everything you have?

Book Details

Genre: 

  • Historical Fiction

Age Level: 

  • 8 - 12
Profile Picture

Searching for Silverheels is about a thirteen year old girl named Pearl. She loves the legend of Silverheels, a beautiful and kind dancer girl who appeared in the early 1860s. She appeared at a gold mining camp and nursed the men when an outbreak of smallpox erupted. Unfortunately, suffragette Josie Gilbert believes the opposite, that Silverheels was a thief and a liar. When Josie challenges Pearl to a bet, she accepts. Pearl is determined to win so Josie won’t campaign in her family’s café and scare off customers.

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