Book excerpt: Ten-year-old Gertie Larson shares three of her most exciting real-life adventures experienced in her hometown of Richfield, Utah, in the early 1900s. In her first adventure, her disappointment at not having a birthday party is unexpectedly overcome when she, her two sisters, her best friend, and a mentally handicapped youth she befriends are given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ride Jumbo the elephant in the circus parade! In her second adventure, a little Ute Indian girl, a "What I Have to Be Thankful For" essay contest, and a spooky encounter in an abandoned mine with "the thing," move her story along to the third and final adventure. Gertie's third adventure climaxes her two previous ones and includes a community birthday parade for an unlikely birthday celebrant; Gertie's being the "volunteer" in a demonstration of the pain-relieving properties of a new drug, Novocain; and a surprise wedding. Woven throughout Gertie's adventures are lessons of faith, love, and family unity. How these lessons affect Gertie, her family, and her friends make Gertie's Real-Life Adventures joyful reading.