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Historical Fiction • Inferential
Predict • Inferential 
STRATEGIES IN CONTEXT 
MODEL I need to look for clues to tell me about the setting of the story I am reading. I read about many businesses being set up in Boom Town. Even though the author does not say exactly when the events take place, all of these businesses that are mentioned are businesses that people needed in the past. Even though the story is made up, I think the details and events really could have happened. That is why I feel that Boom Town is an example of historical fiction.
Student Edition
Unit 1, pp. 16–35
Historical fiction is a made-up story that takes place in the past. Can you tell when this Selection Snapshot took place? What clues can you use?
A stagecoach carried Ma, my brothers, Baby Betsy, and me, Amanda, to California. Pa was already here. He was working in the gold fields. Every day he swung a pick and panned for gold. Ma said that she wasn't going to raise her family in a gold field. So we lived in town, and Dad stayed in the fields.
Town was little more than a couple of cabins. It was a small, lonely place. Every day was the same. I fetched water and helped clean and cook. I helped with the mending. We always had something that needed to be sewed. We worked hard all week. But we all looked forward to the weekend. That's when Pa came home.
One day I had a hankering for pie. Now, we didn't have a proper oven or pie tins. But I found a skillet. I put the pie in that old frying pan and baked it in the wood stove. Pa really liked it. He took some back to the fields. Guess what happened. The next weekend Pa came home with coins. He did not strike gold. He had sold pieces of my pie! Soon we had a business going. I made pies, and Pa sold them.
One day, a peddler stopped by. I bought some pie tins and a bucket. I told the peddler that people in town needed lots of things. We didn't have a store. So he opened one. He did real well too.
Then one day a man came to town looking for someone to wash his clothes. But our town did not have a laundry. I told him he could make a lot of money if he opened one. And that's just what he did.
Then a cowboy came by. He was tired and wanted to rest for a spell. He needed a place to keep his horse. But we didn't have a stable in town. I told him he should open one. And that's just what he did.
Well, more and more people came to town. Soon the town had a hotel and a cafe. Then a bank opened. The town even built a school. Pa took over my pie business. Now he stays in town baking pies. I help him when I'm not in school. Our town is no longer a small, lonely place. It's a lively boom town!
UPDATED from Boom Town by Sonia Levitin. Published by Orchard Books/Scholastic, Inc. Copyright © 1998 by Sonia Levitin. Reprinted by permission.
Copyright © Pearson Education.
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 Access Content Provide students with the definitions for the following occupational terms:
Economics
Economists separate all economic activities into goods
and services. Boom Town depicts both goods and services. Goods are things that are made. Services are jobs that people perform to help other people. A miller produces flour. A trading post sells supplies. Flour and supplies are goods. A cooper makes and repairs wooden barrels. The barrels are goods. Barrel repair, however, is a service. Boom Town also shows how producers (people who provide goods and services) and consumers (people who buy goods and services) depend on each other. For instance, when miners prospect for gold, they engage in production-related activities. At other times, miners are consumers, dependent on other businesses for goods and services.
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Boom Town. See