Hattie Big Sky, by Kirby Larson

This story starts out in Iowa. Then Hattie moves to Montana, to inherit a claim from her uncle. Montana has rolling skies, and a feeling of vastness that Hattie has never found anywhere else.

Hattie is a sixteen year old girl. She is an orphan, and has spent a good part of her life switching between family members. At the beginning of this story she is living with her strict Aunt and kind Uncle. She is eager to learn and is not good at knitting socks.

Soon after her friend Charlie enlists, Hattie is told by her Aunt that she is being sent to work at a boardinghouse and will not be able to finish high school. She is distressed at the idea.

But then she is thrilled and saddened to hear that her mother’s brother has passed away, leaving her some land in Montana. She packs her bags and her cat and boards the train to Montana.

In Montana, Perilee, a German woman, along with her family, help Hattie get settled in a shack. It is wintertime and Hattie has to work hard to survive the freezing winter, with the task of laying a lot of fence and ploughing and cultivating four acres of land looming ahead of her in the spring.

This book was long but definitely worth reading. It gave me a new view of the discrimination against the Germans during World War Two.

Find Hattie Big Sky in your local library

Visit the Hattie Big Sky website