At the beginning of How Much of These Hills Is Gold, 12-year-old Lucy and 11-year-old Sam have been left to fend for themselves in a mining town, presumably in the 19th-century American West, by their abusive father, who has drunk himself to death. After finding their parent's lifeless body, the children attempt to secure a loan of two silver dollars, not to buy food or other necessities, but to cover his eyes in keeping with what they have been taught constitutes a proper burial. No one will lend them the coins, and when the town banker hurls a racial slur in their direction, Sam commits a retaliatory act of violence, after which the siblings take to the surrounding hills with Nellie, a horse stolen from the local schoolteacher, and their father's corpse packed into a trunk.

These opening pages may leave readers with certain assumptions or at least guesses as to the two children's ...