I’ll simply copy the synopsis from the inside jacket cover:

Vida, Montana, 1918
For most of her life, sixteen-year-old Hattie Brooks has been shuttled from one distant relative to another. Tired of being Hattie Here-and-There, shu summons the courage to leave Iowa and move all by herself to Vida, Montana, to prove up on her late uncle’s homestead claim. “At least now my letters will be more interesting,” she writes to her good friend, Charlie, who is fighting the Kaiser in France.

Under the big sky, Hattie braves hard weather, hard times, a cantankerous cow, and her own hopeless hand at the cookstove. Her quest to make a home is championed by new neighbors Perille Mueller, her German husband, and their children. For the first time in her life, Hattie feels part of a family, finding the srength to stand up against Traft Martin’s schemes to buy her out and against increasing pressure to be a “loyal American at a time when anything – or anyone – German is suspect. Despite daily trials, Hattie continues to work her unc le’s claim until an unforeseen tragedy causes her to search her soul for the real meaning of home.

Lovingly stitched together from KirbyLarson’s own family history and the sights, sounds, and scents of homesteading life, this young pioneer’s story celebrates the true spirit of independence.

Throughout the entire story, I kept thinking to myself, I can’t believe Hattie is only sixteen. Sixteen! Such a wise and hardworking sixteen. She lives by herself on 320 acres of farmland, in a tiny run down shack and everyday she cooks (though not very well), cleans, milks the cows, collects the eggs, chases off wolves, worries about her finances, all the while putting in acres and acres of fence line and planting her fields with flax and wheat. I’d like to see a sixteen year old today do all that! This is a very strong woman (see, I called her woman), I mean, girl character for a book.

This was a enlightening read and I would recommend it. On a side note, before I became a stay-at-home mom I used to work as a conference coordinator for Utah Valley State College. In the past, I have attended the annual Forum on Children’s Literature hosted by the Utah SCBWI and UVSC’s School of Education, Bookstore, and Conferences and Workshops. They have been amazing, with top talent as the main speakers, Jean Craighead George, Richard Peck, Debra Fraiser, just off the top of my head. The conference this year is on March 20-21st. I’ve never paid to attend as I’ve always worked behind the scenes for this event, but this year I may just have to pay. Kirby Larson is one of the keynotes, David Small is the other. I’d be there in a heartbeat but am at a loss as what to do with my two kids for two days (babysitter, anyone?). I’ll have to find a way to get there. If you’re here in Utah, you can check out the conference website, and maybe I’ll see you there. I can tell you from past experience that this one is great!