In the year 1883 many fruit ranchers in California began to receive letters from San Francisco. Each letter was signed "L. Scatena & Company, by A.P. Giannini." Each told about a reliable firm in San Francisco which paid fair prices for fruit and vegetable crops and sold them promptly to hotels, restaurants and groceries.

But when the ranchers took their produce to this firm they discovered that Mr. A.P. Giannini was just thirteen years old! He was Amadeo Peter, Mr. Scatena's stepson.

A.P. had begun to be a businessmen several years earlier, when he lived on a fruit ranch in the Santa Clara Valley and took strawberries up to The City to sell. He loved the produce market that opened every night on San Francisco's water front. He loved the splash of the boats coming up to the docks, the fun of discovering what cargoes were aboard, the smell and feel and color of the fresh, crisp produce, the excitement of bargaining with sellers and later with buyers, even the danger of meeting the thieves and pickpockets who haunted the water front.

A.P.'s mother and stepfather thought their son's interest was unnatural. It just couldn't be good for a growing boy to go to school all day and work on the docks, under flaring gaslights, half the night!  It was true there wasn't a stronger, healthier, handsomer boy in the North Beach Italian neighborhood than Amadeo. Everyone seemed to like him and admire him. His teacher called him her star pupil. The only thing that might keep Amadeo off the honor roll was his stubborn refusal to be called a teacher's pet; he'd risk his good-deportment grade to avoid that! Yet Pop Scatena said proudly that there was no worker at the produce market who was more of a hustler, with better ideas for improving business. Finally the Scatenas had to face it: their Amadeo was simply an exceptional boy.

All his life A.P. Giannini continued to be exceptional. As a young man he reached the top in the produce business and retired-but only to open a bank for the Italian people of North Beach. A.P.'s Bank of Italy was to grow into the biggest bank in the world-the Bank of America, dedicated to protecting its depositors and contributing to the development of A.P.'s native state and of the West Coast.

This interesting story about an unusual boy, the first native-born Californian in this series, was written by Marie Hammontree, who has also written the popular Will and Charlie Mayo: Doctor's Boys. She tells another lively and entertaining story about a great business leader of the United States, a famous American of recent times.

From the dust jacket