Under the Ashes — Cindy Rankin

Eleven-year-old Elizabeth "Littlebeth" Morgan would rather race the boys, chase skunks, and read about bandits than act like a lady. When she whacks the head off a rattlesnake, her parents decide it's the last straw. They send her to live with her maiden aunt Sally in San Francisco to be tamed and refined. The city proves to be anything but tame. Littlebeth wakes one morning to the crashing chaos of a massive earthquake and finds herself surrounded by wreckage. Then a fire breaks out and tears across the city. Now she must depend on her instincts and a few unlikely friends to find her way to safety. But does she have the spirit to survive in a city that's broken and burning?