Jasper and the Riddle of Riley’s Mine by Caroline Starr Rose (review)

Eleven-year-old Jasper always believed his older brother, Mel, would whisk them both away from their drunken and abusive father when the time was right. Mel takes off on his own to join the Stampeders seeking Klondike gold, though, so Jasper trails Mel to the Alaska-bound steamer, stows away, and joins his astonished brother in time to hit the Chilkoot Trail heading off to Dawson City. After being swindled and robbed, the boys have virtually nothing to their name, but Jasper’s laundering skills and the brothers’ combined willingness to take on whatever work appears enable them to reach the goldfields. There Jasper convinces Mel they should put all their faith and effort into locating an abandoned claim, known as Riley’s mine, that has become something of a myth among the Stampeders. Other searchers are also scrambling to collect and decipher the five clues Riley has scattered, and the closer Jasper comes to locating the claim, the more gravely his life is imperiled. The tale is somewhat disjointed, and history testifies that well-outfitted, healthy, grown men lost their shirts in the Klondike, so the story of penniless lads surviving the Dawson winter is deeply implausible. Nonetheless, the mash-up of clue-driven mystery, historical fiction, and survival story has its appeal, and kids who follow Jasper and Mel’s adventure (and Rose’s appended author’s note) may want to take a closer look at the 1897 Stampede in Peter Lourie’s Jack London and the Klondike Gold Rush (reviewed above).