I Am Lavina Cumming — Susan Lowell

Ten-year-old Lavina Cumming loves the Bosque Ranch in Arizona Territory, where she has always lived with her father and mother, her five brothers, and her black mustang pony Chummy. But when her mother dies, Lavina must go to live with her aunt in California. Starting off at dawn on Saturday, September 16, 1905, Lavina travels by train to her aunt's house in Santa Cruz, California, leaving behind everything that is familiar.

Armed with the Cumming family motto, "Courage," Lavina deals with a new school, homesickness, awful Aggie (which is what everyone at school calls Lavina's spoiled cousin when she's not around), a great earthquake that nearly demolishes the nearby city of San Francisco, and a big decision about her future.