Walk on Earth a Stranger: Gold Seer Trilogy, Book 1

Parents need to know that Walk on Earth a Stranger, by Rae Carson (the Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy), is the first in the very promising Gold Seer trilogy. It stars Lee, a girl whose parents are murdered in Georgia by her uncle, who wants to exploit her "witchy" ability to find gold. She disguises herself as a boy to evade her uncle and heads west to California. Just about everything that can go wrong on a wagon train goes wrong: People die from cholera, come down with measles, die of heat exhaustion, die in childbirth, die getting crushed by a wagon, and need a leg amputated. Some of the deaths are quite sad. The leg-amputation scene and a childbirth scene are long and gory. In keeping with the time, plenty of men smoke pipes and cigars and some drink moonshine to drunkenness. The story tackles tough topics such as racism and gender inequality with sensitivity, owing mostly to the wonderful main character: Lee is a mix of tough exterior, to face life’s incredible hardships, and rich interior, pondering the unfairness of life.