Kitty Hawk and the Curse of Yukon Gold

If my history books had been written like Kitty Hawk, I would have paid a lot more attention. Kitty Hawk is jam-packed with detailed information about the Yukon Gold Rush, humpback whale feeding and migration habits, and flying a De Haviland Beaver.

From Goodreads: 

"After leaving her home in the western Canadian fishing village of Tofino to spend the summer in Alaska studying humpback whales Kitty finds herself caught up in an unforgettable adventure involving stolen gold, devious criminals, ghostly shipwrecks, and bone-chilling curses. Kitty's adventure begins with the lingering mystery of a sunken ship called the Clara Nevada and as the plot continues to unfold this spirited story will have armchair explorers and amateur detectives alike anxiously following every twist and turn as they are swept along through the history of the Klondike Gold Rush to a suspenseful final climatic chase across the rugged terrain of Canada's Yukon, the harsh land made famous in the stories and poems of such writers as Jack London, Robert Service and Pierre Berton. It is a riveting tale that brings to glorious life the landscape and history of Alaska's inside passage and Canada's Yukon, as Kitty is caught up in an epic mystery set against the backdrop of the scenery of the Klondike Gold Rush."

Kitty Hawk is described as intrepid too many times in the book descriptions I've read to make me comfortable, unless this book was set in the 1940s. However, Ms. Hawk has access to the latest technology, making me quite certain that her cell-phone-wielding self is firmly planted in the present day. She makes use of that technology to track humpback whales through islands off the coast of Alaska and falls into an adventure with four gold-hauling brothers. They all end up following a trail through the Yukon and Kitty receives an extensive lesson on the way, full of dastardly villains, crazy prospectors, explosions, and people down on their luck trying out yet another scheme to get rich quick. 

The writing is clear and vivid. The narrative meanders, bogged down as it is in multiple lessons, but the action is riveting enough to keep a reader's attention. Kitty talks to herself, internally, extensively, and the reader gets to know her quite well. She has confidence but isn't foolish or overly cautious. She reacts reasonably to the situations she finds herself in and does her best with the resources she has to hand. She's not afraid to ask for help and she proves herself to be quite capable.

Overall, Kitty is quite the perfect heroine and the people she interacts with are black and white characters. There isn't much room for nuance in this straightforward story, but there is hope for redemption at the end. Middle graders would be a great audience for this book.

Gentle Reader Alert: Kitty references deity quite a bit, and she's not prayin', folks. As a religious conservative, that bugged me, especially since this book seems to be written for younger readers.