Explore California's rich past with this collection of primary source titles that focuses on the history of California during the 19th century, a time of tremendous growth and change. Students will learn about the gold rush, the Transcontinental Railroad, early emigration to California, and how Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento grew from small towns to booming cities. Build students' reading skills and social studies literacy with dynamic primary source artifacts including maps, letters, documents, and images that provide authentic reading materials and keep students interested in learning. This high-interest set includes nonfiction readers and biographies, and each book has essential text features like a glossary, index, captions, table of contents, and fascinating sidebars. The Read and Respond section and Your Turn culminating activity prompt students to dive deeper into the text for additional reading and learning as they develop higher-order thinking skills. These books connect to California state studies standards and the NCSS/C3 Framework, and the leveled texts accommodate different reading levels, making differentiation easy to implement. This set includes the following titles: The Gold Rush, Biddy Mason: Becoming a Leader, California: Becoming a State, Crossing a Continent, Crossing Oceans: Immigrating to California, and California: Towns to Cities.