Lavina Cumming has spent her entire first ten years of life on the Bosque Ranch in Arizona Territory, but when her mother dies, she must go live with her aunt in Santa Cruz, California.

Armed with the Cumming family motto, "Courage," Lavina starts off at dawn on September 16, 1905, leaving behind everything that is familiar. She arrives in a world of two-story houses, automobiles, a new school, and her cousin, "awful Aggie." Trying her best to settle in, Lavina is as shocked as everyone else by the great earthquake that nearly demolishes the nearby city of San Francisco. In the aftermath of the quake, she must make a big decision about her future.

Based on the true story of the author’s grandmother, I Am Lavina Cumming offers a compelling look at life in early twentieth-century California and a girl struggling to find her place there.