HATTIE BIG SKY

What dreams would lead a 16-year-old to leave her safe home in Arlington, Iowa, and take a chance on a homestead claim in Montana? Hattie Brooks, an orphan, is tired of being shuttled between relatives, tired of being Hattie Here-and-There and the feeling of being the “one odd sock behind.” So when Uncle Chester leaves her his Montana homestead claim, she jumps at the chance for independence. It’s 1918, so this is homesteading in the days of Model Ts rather than covered wagons, a time of world war, Spanish influenza and anti-German sentiment turning nasty in small-town America. Hattie’s first-person narrative is a deft mix of her own accounts of managing her claim, letters to and from her friend Charlie, who is off at war, newspaper columns she writes and even a couple of recipes. Based on a bit of Larson’s family history, this is not so much a happily-ever-after story as a next-year-will-be-better tale, with Hattie’s new-found definition of home. This fine offering may well inspire readers to find out more about their own family histories. (acknowledgments, author’s note, further reading) (Fiction. 12-15)