Level 6 Literature Circle Unit by Emily Pratt

Sam White, an eleven-year-old boy, his parents, and his younger brother leave their Kentucky home to find new land in the Dakota Territory.  After the long journey in a cramped covered wagon, the White's arrive in the Dakota's unharmed.  They find a plot of land they like and stake a claim.  All they have to do plant 10 acres of land, build a house, and stay there for five years and the land will be theirs.  The whole family pitches in to build a dugout house and plant the crops.  Everything is going fine until a huge of swarm of grasshoppers eats the crops.  The family is devastated until Sam's father gets a loan to rebuild the farm.  Sam, who did not want to move to begin with, finally learns to love the new Dakota land.

The Ballad of Lucy Whipple by Karen Cushman

California Morning Whipple is torn from her Massachusetts home when her mother becomes focused on settling in the American West, on the break of the Great California Gold Rush shortly after the death of California's father.  The twelve-year-old California, the eldest child, has many responsibilities in the new land that she is not accustomed too.  She fails to do her chores properly because of her constant reading and studying of her only book.  The family runs a boarding "house" which is actually a couple of canvas tents where a few of the local miners/prospectors stay.  California decides to change her name in honor of the new life they are forced to live in.  Her one and only dream is to move back to her childhood home of Massachusetts.  The Whipple's face incredible hardships in the small town of Lucky Diggins and fail to find their fortune.  After many years, the opportunity for Lucy to return "home" appears.  It is only as she is about to leave that she realizes that Lucky Diggins is her home.  She decides to stay in the growing town and serve as a librarian, surrounded by books all the time.