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Hattie #1
Hattie Big Sky
Alone in the world, teen-aged Hattie is driven to prove up on her uncle's homesteading claim.
For years, sixteen-year-old Hattie's been shuttled between relatives. Tired of being Hattie Here-and-There, she courageously leaves Iowa to prove up on her late uncle's homestead claim near Vida, Montana. With a stubborn stick-to-itiveness, Hattie faces frost, drought and blizzards. Despite many hardships, Hattie forges ahead, sharing her adventures with her friends--especially Charlie, fighting in France--through letters and articles for her hometown paper.
Her backbreaking quest for a home is lightened by her neighbors, the Muellers. But she feels threatened by pressure to be a "Loyal" American, forbidding friendships with folks of German descent. Despite everything, Hattie's determined to stay until a tragedy causes her to discover the true meaning of home.
From the Hardcover edition.
For years, sixteen-year-old Hattie's been shuttled between relatives. Tired of being Hattie Here-and-There, she courageously leaves Iowa to prove up on her late uncle's homestead claim near Vida, Montana. With a stubborn stick-to-itiveness, Hattie faces frost, drought and blizzards. Despite many hardships, Hattie forges ahead, sharing her adventures with her friends--especially Charlie, fighting in France--through letters and articles for her hometown paper.
Her backbreaking quest for a home is lightened by her neighbors, the Muellers. But she feels threatened by pressure to be a "Loyal" American, forbidding friendships with folks of German descent. Despite everything, Hattie's determined to stay until a tragedy causes her to discover the true meaning of home.
From the Hardcover edition.
320 pages, Paperback
First published September 26, 2006
341 people are currently reading
12168 people want to read
About the author
Kirby Larson
48 books437 followersKirby Larson went from history-phobe to history fanatic while writing the 2007 Newbery Honor Book, HATTIE BIG SKY. Her passion for historical fiction is reflected in titles such as THE FENCES BETWEEN US, THE FRIENDSHIP DOLL, as well as the sequel to HATTIE BIG SKY, HATTIE EVER AFTER, and her two latest titles, DUKE--which was nominated for 5 state Young Reader Choice awards as well as being a finalist for the Washington State Book Award-- and DASH--which has garnered two starred reviews, a NAPPA Gold Award and a Capitol Choices nomination. She will have two new books out in 2016 -- watch for them!
In 2006, Kirby began a collaboration with her good friend Mary Nethery resulting in two award-winning nonfiction picture books: TWO BOBBIES: A TRUE STORY OF HURRICANE KATRINA, FRIENDSHIP AND SURVIVAL, and NUBS: THE TRUE STORY OF A MUTT, A MARINE AND A MIRACLE.
Kirby lives in Kenmore, Washington with her husband, Neil, and Winston the Wonder Dog. When she’s not reading or writing Kirby enjoys beach combing, bird watching, and traveling. She owns a tiara and is not afraid to use it.
In 2006, Kirby began a collaboration with her good friend Mary Nethery resulting in two award-winning nonfiction picture books: TWO BOBBIES: A TRUE STORY OF HURRICANE KATRINA, FRIENDSHIP AND SURVIVAL, and NUBS: THE TRUE STORY OF A MUTT, A MARINE AND A MIRACLE.
Kirby lives in Kenmore, Washington with her husband, Neil, and Winston the Wonder Dog. When she’s not reading or writing Kirby enjoys beach combing, bird watching, and traveling. She owns a tiara and is not afraid to use it.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,430 reviews
July 25, 2012
My only regret? Why didn't I read this sooner? I can't wait to share Hattie with kids.
August 10, 2015
The novel reads young (middle grade), but, still, it was a great pleasure to read this sweet, simple story of a 16-year old girl homesteading on Montana prairie during WWI. Hattie works hard, helps her friends, perseveres against many adversities.
Willa Cather for kids.
Willa Cather for kids.
July 24, 2017
Hattie's character was an all-around joy to meet. Though her story ended differently than I thought it would, and, wow, are there some sad happenings in the story, overall it felt realistic. I appreciated that the author included the real-life inspiration for the story, and I will definitely track down the sequel (probably after I'm finished with this young adult class - the "genre" is wearing on me as a whole - give me a grown-up book, haha!).
If I have any gripe it's that there were a few times that I wished Hattie would speak up for herself. However, being that she's a young girl in the early 1900s, the way she handled things is probably more realistic - it's just my modern-day woman point of view sneaking in there. The descriptions of Montana are beautiful, and Hattie's personality truly shines. The secondary characters are varied and wonderful as well. Lest tears come to my eyes, we will avoid talking about the children of the novel, because my heart just can't take it.
Young adult Beth would have loved this, and more than likely, would have read this multiple times. And I know this is silly, but I hope she ends up with Charlie in book two. But good on her for paving her way without a man! :)
If I have any gripe it's that there were a few times that I wished Hattie would speak up for herself. However, being that she's a young girl in the early 1900s, the way she handled things is probably more realistic - it's just my modern-day woman point of view sneaking in there. The descriptions of Montana are beautiful, and Hattie's personality truly shines. The secondary characters are varied and wonderful as well. Lest tears come to my eyes, we will avoid talking about the children of the novel, because my heart just can't take it.
Young adult Beth would have loved this, and more than likely, would have read this multiple times. And I know this is silly, but I hope she ends up with Charlie in book two. But good on her for paving her way without a man! :)
December 3, 2008
Hattie is a sixteen-year-old girl who has been shuttled from relative to relative for most of her life after the death of her parents. When her uncle leaves her his homestead claim in Montana, she decides to make a go of it. Instead of being Hattie Here-and-There she wants to be Hattie Homesteader. In order to keep the place, she must prove the claim with enough fencing and farming to satisfy government specifications.
What a great story! I loved Hattie and her amazing spirit and determination. Kirby Larson has written an amazing book. I feel like I lived in that claim shack with Hattie - facing the hardships and experiencing the friendships and joys right along with her. THIS is the book that should have won the Newbery medal instead of The Higher Power of Lucky. Hattie Big Sky is now one of my top historical fiction favorites - right up there with the Little House books and Sarah, Plain and Tall.
What a great story! I loved Hattie and her amazing spirit and determination. Kirby Larson has written an amazing book. I feel like I lived in that claim shack with Hattie - facing the hardships and experiencing the friendships and joys right along with her. THIS is the book that should have won the Newbery medal instead of The Higher Power of Lucky. Hattie Big Sky is now one of my top historical fiction favorites - right up there with the Little House books and Sarah, Plain and Tall.
April 10, 2008
I was just a few pages into the book when I read a line that made me smile. Left me without a doubt that this was a special this book, and Ms. Larson's writing was special, too. After a very rough start under the big sky of Vida, Montana, Hattie Inez Brooks sat down to the first meal in her new home. A meal provided by her new neighbor, Perilee Mueller. "The stew tasted of sage and carrots and hope." That line made me pause; made me think. If only we could all grab hope from the simple pleasures and kind gestures of life.
The book is based on Kirby Larson's great-grandmother's attempt to make a go of the homestead her Uncle left her in his will. From Hattie's struggles with the bitter winter, the stifling, bug-infested summers, and the anti-German sentiment that threatened her best friend, Perilee Mueller and her husband, Karl, we are there with every beautifully-written word.
If Hattie had known in advance the hardship of that year in Montana, would she have abandoned her dream? I choose to believe she would've stuck it out. The Hattie I came to know would never have given up without a fight.
Hattie Big Sky comes highly recommended by this reader for all age groups.
The book is based on Kirby Larson's great-grandmother's attempt to make a go of the homestead her Uncle left her in his will. From Hattie's struggles with the bitter winter, the stifling, bug-infested summers, and the anti-German sentiment that threatened her best friend, Perilee Mueller and her husband, Karl, we are there with every beautifully-written word.
If Hattie had known in advance the hardship of that year in Montana, would she have abandoned her dream? I choose to believe she would've stuck it out. The Hattie I came to know would never have given up without a fight.
Hattie Big Sky comes highly recommended by this reader for all age groups.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2020
Overall Rating: A
"...Rather, the lessons this life has planted in my heart pertain more to caring than to crops, more to Golden Rule than gold, more to the proper choice than to the popular choice."
The first book of the year where the last half made me cry my eyes out. So the year's starting out good!😂
Remenicing my childhood reading Little House On the Prairie, a sweet, homey book with the highs, and lows, of life in 1918 Montana during WW1.
Not something I usually read but it pleasantly surprised me. With a strong young lady in a time where that was laughed at, trying to take care of something all on her own, and realizing that some people can't look past a person just because of your name. The ending is bittersweet, but you wouldn't want it any other way
"...Rather, the lessons this life has planted in my heart pertain more to caring than to crops, more to Golden Rule than gold, more to the proper choice than to the popular choice."
The first book of the year where the last half made me cry my eyes out. So the year's starting out good!😂
Remenicing my childhood reading Little House On the Prairie, a sweet, homey book with the highs, and lows, of life in 1918 Montana during WW1.
Not something I usually read but it pleasantly surprised me. With a strong young lady in a time where that was laughed at, trying to take care of something all on her own, and realizing that some people can't look past a person just because of your name. The ending is bittersweet, but you wouldn't want it any other way
October 19, 2018
4 stars
Montana always hooks me in. While I much prefer the western, mountainous side of the state, learning more about the eastern side filled with prairies and big sky is amazing too. Hattie features the eastern side of Montana, and the atmosphere definitely came alive for me. I felt like I was back in this beautiful land, right alongside the teen lead.
The emotion of this story had me laughing, weeping, irritated, and joyful. I love books that get all the feelings stirred up. The twists kept coming, and they had me guessing wrong most of the time. I appreciated the surprises, both good and bad.
This was my first experience reading something by Kirby Larson. I enjoyed most of it, so I’m sure I’ll be reading another very soon. The narrator added to the emotional atmosphere, as she was wonderful with the voices and inflections and everything. She brought an extra depth that kept me hooked throughout.
Overall, a great story, but there were bits of profanity here and there, as well as replacement expletives and tobacco usage.
Montana always hooks me in. While I much prefer the western, mountainous side of the state, learning more about the eastern side filled with prairies and big sky is amazing too. Hattie features the eastern side of Montana, and the atmosphere definitely came alive for me. I felt like I was back in this beautiful land, right alongside the teen lead.
The emotion of this story had me laughing, weeping, irritated, and joyful. I love books that get all the feelings stirred up. The twists kept coming, and they had me guessing wrong most of the time. I appreciated the surprises, both good and bad.
This was my first experience reading something by Kirby Larson. I enjoyed most of it, so I’m sure I’ll be reading another very soon. The narrator added to the emotional atmosphere, as she was wonderful with the voices and inflections and everything. She brought an extra depth that kept me hooked throughout.
Overall, a great story, but there were bits of profanity here and there, as well as replacement expletives and tobacco usage.
February 20, 2008
A well-researched look into claimstaking land. This is based on the author's grandmother's experience as a teenager, staking her own claim and farming the land by herself, and I can't even begin to say how impressed I am by all this. Also, I always thought of settling the west as being a pre-1900's thing, and this takes place at the end of the First World War. Fascinating read, with great characters.
July 18, 2017
I'm not sure how to review this book. I enjoyed parts of it, got mad and ranted over other parts, cried at some, smiled at others, and cringed at some things.
What I liked:
I liked Hattie. She was trying to find who she was and where she belonged. I liked her friends in Montana, except for one person's misuse of the Lord's name. The descriptions, the setting, the time period all made me eager to read the book. There was some talk about prayer, attending church, and "God moves in mysterious ways," but that's about it.
What I didn't like:
I already mentioned it, but the Lord's name was misused around a dozen times, so I can't recommend an unedited version. Since this took place during WWI, there was a lot of anti-German stuff going on. Some was rather extreme and made me so mad I didn't want to keep reading. No one stood up for those of German decent. And the main bully was controlled by his mother. There seemed to be no law around that anyone could go to when barns were burned or someone was mistreated, except once when someone hadn't registered for the draft and a deputy appeared from somewhere to arrest him. There was also a minor descriptive birth scene. It didn't bother me, but I wouldn't hand it to any boy. I can sort of understand why the author ended the story the way she did, but I didn't really like it.
Overall, it is not a book I would recommend.
What I liked:
I liked Hattie. She was trying to find who she was and where she belonged. I liked her friends in Montana, except for one person's misuse of the Lord's name. The descriptions, the setting, the time period all made me eager to read the book. There was some talk about prayer, attending church, and "God moves in mysterious ways," but that's about it.
What I didn't like:
I already mentioned it, but the Lord's name was misused around a dozen times, so I can't recommend an unedited version. Since this took place during WWI, there was a lot of anti-German stuff going on. Some was rather extreme and made me so mad I didn't want to keep reading. No one stood up for those of German decent. And the main bully was controlled by his mother. There seemed to be no law around that anyone could go to when barns were burned or someone was mistreated, except once when someone hadn't registered for the draft and a deputy appeared from somewhere to arrest him. There was also a minor descriptive birth scene. It didn't bother me, but I wouldn't hand it to any boy. I can sort of understand why the author ended the story the way she did, but I didn't really like it.
Overall, it is not a book I would recommend.
June 17, 2023
{June 2023 Reread}
I don't know that I would like this book as much as I do were it not for the memory of Kirsten Potter's masterful narration in the audiobook, which was the way I first experienced the novel back in my early teens. She made Hattie and her simple story come alive, and I still hear her voice in my head when I'm reading it for myself.
Larson opts for an unconventional ending that I've always respected. This time, however, I think I'll finally have to actually finish the sequel to find out how she leaves Hattie the second time around. (I apparently gave it five stars at one point but I don't remember much of anything about it.)
I don't know that I would like this book as much as I do were it not for the memory of Kirsten Potter's masterful narration in the audiobook, which was the way I first experienced the novel back in my early teens. She made Hattie and her simple story come alive, and I still hear her voice in my head when I'm reading it for myself.
Larson opts for an unconventional ending that I've always respected. This time, however, I think I'll finally have to actually finish the sequel to find out how she leaves Hattie the second time around. (I apparently gave it five stars at one point but I don't remember much of anything about it.)
July 29, 2020
This story was so good it made me want to homestead. And if you know me at all, you know that I am an indoor girl with horrendous allergies that make it nearly impossible for me to even be near a farm. Yet here I was, thinking if Hattie could do it, I too could make a go of it.
I want to crawl inside this book and live 3 miles north and west of Vida, Montana. Maybe I'll take up quilting.
I also really appreciated the commentary about patriotism. It was interesting to read about the way people treated German Americans during WWI - that is something I'd never read about before.
I want to crawl inside this book and live 3 miles north and west of Vida, Montana. Maybe I'll take up quilting.
I also really appreciated the commentary about patriotism. It was interesting to read about the way people treated German Americans during WWI - that is something I'd never read about before.
July 12, 2010
Teenagers are perfect protagonists for historical novels. Two historical novels for adults that really impressed me recently, 'The Children's Book' and 'Wolf Hall,' feature adolescents as central characters.
The rite of passage from child to adult is universal. And as Hattie shows in Kirby Larson's touching story, young adults' ability to bridge the divide between world of the kids and the world of the grown-ups allows the reader to enter both.
The time is 1918, just after America's entry into the Great War.
Hattie is a sixteen-year-old orphan who finds a way to escape her stodgy, straight-laced and reluctant caretaker, Aunt Ivy. When her long unseen uncle dies and wills her his Montana homestead claim, Hattie jumps at the chance to get out of Arlington, Iowa. To own the land, she must find the wherewithal to 'prove up' the claim in ten months.
That's enough for an interesting tale, but Larson adds a subplot that spices things up considerably. It was a time when patriotism sometime became an excuse for bigotry to exercise power. German-Americans were treated shabbily, in 'Hattie Big Sky' to the point of persecution.
It's to Larson's credit that she doesn't present the issue in black and white. Indeed, Hattie, who forms close bonds with a German farmer and his family, is attracted to the dashing young Traft Martin, land baron and leader of the County Council of Defense. It would be easy to paint Traft as a coward for avoiding the draft and a hate-filled monomaniac for harrassing German-Americans, but he's more complicated than that.
In fact, I found him the most fascinating character in the novel next to Hattie, and spent some time visualizing who might play this equivocal villain in the movie.
The book is peopled with quite a cast, and offers a nice window into the time of Woodrow Wilson and the Spanish Flu pandemic, as seen from the wide open spaces of the Montana prairie.
The rite of passage from child to adult is universal. And as Hattie shows in Kirby Larson's touching story, young adults' ability to bridge the divide between world of the kids and the world of the grown-ups allows the reader to enter both.
The time is 1918, just after America's entry into the Great War.
Hattie is a sixteen-year-old orphan who finds a way to escape her stodgy, straight-laced and reluctant caretaker, Aunt Ivy. When her long unseen uncle dies and wills her his Montana homestead claim, Hattie jumps at the chance to get out of Arlington, Iowa. To own the land, she must find the wherewithal to 'prove up' the claim in ten months.
That's enough for an interesting tale, but Larson adds a subplot that spices things up considerably. It was a time when patriotism sometime became an excuse for bigotry to exercise power. German-Americans were treated shabbily, in 'Hattie Big Sky' to the point of persecution.
It's to Larson's credit that she doesn't present the issue in black and white. Indeed, Hattie, who forms close bonds with a German farmer and his family, is attracted to the dashing young Traft Martin, land baron and leader of the County Council of Defense. It would be easy to paint Traft as a coward for avoiding the draft and a hate-filled monomaniac for harrassing German-Americans, but he's more complicated than that.
In fact, I found him the most fascinating character in the novel next to Hattie, and spent some time visualizing who might play this equivocal villain in the movie.
The book is peopled with quite a cast, and offers a nice window into the time of Woodrow Wilson and the Spanish Flu pandemic, as seen from the wide open spaces of the Montana prairie.
November 25, 2024
I've had this book on my shelf for so long but I don't know WHY I waited so long to read this.
This was such a glorious read. Overflowing with the theme of family, this YA historical fiction truly deserves it's Newberry Award.
As a writer myself, I was amazed at the prose quality of the descriptions and characterizations.
This story sucked me in and then to find out it was based on a true story... AH! 😍 I thoroughly enjoyed myself during this WHOLE read, I cannot wait for the next one!!
Content: One starred out use of the d-word, a bit of romance, a childbirth (not very descriptive), death, and a bit of violence.
✨ 5 Stars ✨
This was such a glorious read. Overflowing with the theme of family, this YA historical fiction truly deserves it's Newberry Award.
As a writer myself, I was amazed at the prose quality of the descriptions and characterizations.
This story sucked me in and then to find out it was based on a true story... AH! 😍 I thoroughly enjoyed myself during this WHOLE read, I cannot wait for the next one!!
Content: One starred out use of the d-word, a bit of romance, a childbirth (not very descriptive), death, and a bit of violence.
✨ 5 Stars ✨
April 10, 2024
➳ 4 ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚
╰┈➤ ”i will have to rely on that painful teacher, experience.”
i did not expect to enjoy this as much as i did…i got it blindly from my library during quarantine through a program where you give them some information about you and your tastes and they pick some books for you and i have to thank the library because i loved this.
usually i don’t care about the whole “prairie” life but this kept my interest and i got very invested in the characters. i need to get to book 2 🎀
୧ ‧₊˚ 🍓 ⋅ ☆
╰┈➤ ”i will have to rely on that painful teacher, experience.”
i did not expect to enjoy this as much as i did…i got it blindly from my library during quarantine through a program where you give them some information about you and your tastes and they pick some books for you and i have to thank the library because i loved this.
usually i don’t care about the whole “prairie” life but this kept my interest and i got very invested in the characters. i need to get to book 2 🎀
୧ ‧₊˚ 🍓 ⋅ ☆
March 7, 2018
Actual rating: 3.5
A supremely interesting look at life in Montana during WWI.
A supremely interesting look at life in Montana during WWI.
June 13, 2021
AHH I LOVED THIS BOOK!!
I can't think of a single thing that I did notenjoy love about this book. All the characters were amazing and actually felt realistic, and very easy to love or be annoyed at (in a good way, like taking sides with Hattie). The writing was fantastic. It was a nice refresher from the other books I've read lately and I'm so glad I picked up something as great as this book. Actually, I listened to the audiobook version (the narrator was also great, by the way), and that's probably why it took me so long to finish it. I don't always have time where I can put my headphones on and listen to hours of this but when I did, I loved it. I'm excited that there is a second book to this series and hope to borrow it!!
Besides just the characters, the timeline and all of the events just felt so realistic. There was no holding back if something bad happened, and well, Sad, but it did make it more realistic.
I thought it was fun listening to Hattie's letters that she wrote to the newspaper and was glad that she was able to make a tiny bit more cash from just writing about her experiences.
My favorite characters were probably all of the prominent characters: Rooster Jim, Leafy, Hattie, Perilee, Karl, their kids, Charlie, even Traft... Basically all of the characters were amazing, like I mentioned above.
If you want a good book about homesteading in Montana during WW1, this is the book for you. And I certainly hope to find it on my personal shelf soon, stacked up with all the rest of my lovely books.
Content:
Language:
Sexy Stuff/Romance:
Violence:
I can't think of a single thing that I did not
Besides just the characters, the timeline and all of the events just felt so realistic. There was no holding back if something bad happened, and well, Sad, but it did make it more realistic.
I thought it was fun listening to Hattie's letters that she wrote to the newspaper and was glad that she was able to make a tiny bit more cash from just writing about her experiences.
My favorite characters were probably all of the prominent characters: Rooster Jim, Leafy, Hattie, Perilee, Karl, their kids, Charlie, even Traft... Basically all of the characters were amazing, like I mentioned above.
If you want a good book about homesteading in Montana during WW1, this is the book for you. And I certainly hope to find it on my personal shelf soon, stacked up with all the rest of my lovely books.
Content:
Language:
Sexy Stuff/Romance:
Violence:
September 11, 2014
I don't remember who recommended this one to me, but thank you! I loved this story of Hattie Brooks, an orphan who has never had a real home of her own. She finds out that her uncle, whom she has never met, has left her his homestead in Montana in his will. If she can meet the requirements, the land is hers.
The trouble is that she has only 10 months to do it, and most of it by herself. The requirements are pretty tough, but Hattie figures with a good year, she just might have a place to call home.
I loved Hattie. She was a great character and I really enjoyed her take on life. Although she faced a lot of tough situations, she wasn't one to sit and feel sorry for herself. This was such a fun book to read and I'm so glad I heard of it.
The trouble is that she has only 10 months to do it, and most of it by herself. The requirements are pretty tough, but Hattie figures with a good year, she just might have a place to call home.
I loved Hattie. She was a great character and I really enjoyed her take on life. Although she faced a lot of tough situations, she wasn't one to sit and feel sorry for herself. This was such a fun book to read and I'm so glad I heard of it.
May 10, 2023
Hattie was pretty badass. I actually had never heard of the small town of Vida, but I knew the surrounding towns. It's hilarious hearing about places I grew up in and the stance of the author on them.
Hattie is off on her own at the age of 16 to try to finish Homesteading her uncle's land with very little to hear name.
Reminded me of a younger feeling Kristin Hannah, had a bit of the The Great Alone feel to it.
Solid 4 Stars.
Hattie is off on her own at the age of 16 to try to finish Homesteading her uncle's land with very little to hear name.
Reminded me of a younger feeling Kristin Hannah, had a bit of the The Great Alone feel to it.
Solid 4 Stars.
January 26, 2017
There is a great deal I enjoyed about this book. An orphan, just about to be sent out to work, receives an inheritance from her long-lost uncle, of a homestead claim in Montana. This is a very satisfying story beginning. A homesteader must live on the claim and plant it for three years, put in a mile and a half of fence, and then 320 acres are hers. The uncle died after two years, leaving Hattie one year of planting and all the fencing to do.
Hattie expands as a character as her horizons expands, and that is also satisfying. She meets many interesting characters, who are her neighbors in the middle of the prairie where she lives. Each of them change her in different ways. All of that makes an enjoyable story.
*** spoiler alert *** this section contains spoilers *** spoiler alert
The author says she spent three years researching this book. I have to guess that this means three summer trips to Montana to, as she says, look at records. The writer's vast ignorance of living in the country, of doing the work that she describes her character doing, creates disconnects in the book that make it difficult to enjoy.
It is obvious the writer knows nothing about chickens. She has taken some information about "setting" hens, and believes that "setting" has something to do with laying. Hattie is given three hens by her neighbor as a gift. The neighbor also gives her a rooster. Hattie puts the chickens in the house while she builds them a coop. (Not the barn? Really? Chickens poop. A lot). The writer seems to imagine three separate nests that these chickens will "set" on. Hattie describes finding broken egg shells on the nests each morning. Taking the advice of a neighbor to make her hens "set," Hattie dunks one of the chickens in the water barrel several times. And that, she says, does the trick. (Did she then drink this water? Scared chickens poop!)
This is why fiction needs to be truthful. This example of pointless animal cruelty should not ever be repeated by anyone else.
Where to begin? A setting hen is a hen who is trying to hatch a nest full of eggs. A hen, from 5 months to about a year and a half, will regularly lay an egg a day (except when it's too cold, too hot, she's molting, the days are too short, or she's in a bad mood). Hens will continue laying when they're older, but less frequently. Hens in the same coop general have a favorite nesting place, and they will all use this same nest (which can create the amusing sight of hens sitting practically on top of one another, trying to lay at the same time). You don't want your hens "setting" if you want to eat the eggs. You do want your hen to set if you have enough eggs that you want to hatch out some chicks. Hattie doesn't need her hens to set, she needs them to lay, which they will do all by themselves with no assistance (with the exceptions listed above). Hens can't set anyway if they haven't already laid some eggs, so it is obvious the writer did not run this manuscript by anyone who knows anything about chickens. Also, roosters don't just crow at dawn. They crow all the time. I suppose eventually you just get used to it and only hear it when you're waking up -- at dawn. You don't need a rooster for your hens to lay. (Females ovulate without male assistance). You do need them to hatch chicks, which Hattie's chickens never do. If you come into the coop in the morning and there are eggshells and no eggs, it means a packrat or other rodent has gotten to your eggs, and you need to check your fencing.
Hattie's excellent range horse saves the lives of two children who are caught in a blizzard, by bringing them to her door clinging to his tail. Hattie takes the children indoors and then leaves the horse on the lee side of the house (the side not being hit by the wind) all night. Hattie has a perfectly good barn. The idea that she would leave a very good horse out in the blizzard when what she needs to do is put the horse in the barn with water and feed, is, well, inconceivable.
And speaking of the barn, Hattie arrives at her uncle's tar paper shack in January. Supposedly she heats this using the wood stove that she feeds with buffalo chips. It does not seem plausible that she can keep a tar paper shack heated in below-zero weather in such a manner. At the same time she has this perfectly good barn. Why doesn't she sleep there, where the cow and the horse can help keep it warm?
And another thing! I think we may assume that dried buffalo chips, being not as dense as wood, burn faster. If this is her source of fuel for cooking and heating, then where is her gigantic stack of buffalo chips? Why doesn't she spend any time at all during the book picking up new ones? If she filled her apron with buffalo chips, that would keep the stove going for maybe 2-3 hours, as a generous estimate. Imagine what a pile of chips she would need to burn to keep her warm in January for a whole day. Yet she never mentions a store of fuel in the barn, or bringing in more fuel.
Hattie has to build a mile and a half of fence to prove her claim. Strangely her uncle, though he acquired the materials on credit, did not begin this huge job. It is not clear what kind of fence Hattie builds. Poles and barbed wire seem the most likely in 1918, but Hattie is using a hammer and nails, and not setting poles. This is another place where the author has her character doing work that she doesn't not know how to do herself.
America's involvement in the First World War is part of the backdrop of this book. Hattie corresponds with her friend Charlie, who joined up prior to the book's beginning and is on his way to France. Charlie becomes an airplane mechanic. Strangely, he then ends up in the trenches, and in one letter reports losing 15 of his friends. The U.S. had an army of 4 million, of which we landed about a million in France by the summer of 1918, half of whom saw action, and 110,000 were killed. Charlie seems to be at war a lot earlier than the rest of the U.S. military, as he is sending letters from the front in the spring of 1918. It doesn't seem conceivable that an airplane mechanic would be transferred to the trenches in those few months before the war's end on Nov. 11, 1918.
In this story, this small section of Montana in this book is the subject of vicious jingoism, as her German neighbor's barn is burned and his two cows killed. One of the townsman is ritually humiliated until Hattie steps in, and everyone is blackmailed into buying war bonds and stamps, or else they are suspected of German sympathies. While these things did happen in the U.S. at that time, to have them all concentrated in one tiny community where neighbors have to rely on one another to survive, seems out of proportion, and made the book less enjoyable.
Hattie in the beginning is an orphan who turns out to have $400 in the bank from her parents. It seemed strange that all those relatives who passed her from one to another never managed to get hold of any of it. Her uncle doesn't leave her any money, and she is running out, when her relative sells her letters to him to the local paper without her permission, and she is hired to write one per month. This doesn't seem likely. First, that he would offer them without her permission, or that the copy that we are reading are worth $15 to a newspaper editor. Writing entertaining copy is work. To have her get this $15 per month (at a time when $1 a day was a man's wages for a 10-hour day) seems highly unlikely.
Because it is 1918, the author also includes the Spanish Flu pandemic in the story. Hattie is at her neighbor's house one day, and then next morning when she goes there, her friend and her four children are all prostrate from the flu, so ill that one of them dies. Spanish Influenza cases began in the U.S. in military installations. Then, it proceeded to the big cities, many of which reported hundreds dead during Sept-Dec 1918. How did pioneers in the middle of Montana contract a disease which at this time was seen on the East coast and in San Francisco? And how did they get so sick overnight? It doesn't make sense. Spanish flu notoriously killed the strong and healthy, while the old and young, who are usually most susceptible to the flu, survived. That doesn't happen in this case.
With all this ranch work to do (planting, harvesting, gardening, and building a mile and a half of fence), it is difficult to see where Hattie got the hours and hours to spend quilting between January and September, by which time she becomes an excellent quilt-maker. At night? By firelight? After all that hard physical labor? It doesn't say.
In the end, Hattie fails to prove her land, because she has too many debts. I didn't understand that at all. All through the process, she carefully saved out the $37.50 she would need to pay the fee for the claim. How is it she doesn't have this? Where did the $400 plus $15/month go? (Her uncle bought the fencing materials, and two months into her stay Hattie is informed by the store owner that her uncle didn't pay for it. Why didn't he go pick up the materials as they sat out in her uncle's barn all those months since the uncle took them? It doesn't make sense that he didn't explain the debt to Hattie when she arrived. And why should she believe that her uncle didn't pay this debt?)
As soon as Hattie pays $37.50 she will own 320 acres of land, which she can then sell. This is what the author's great grandmother, who inspired this story, did. Why doesn't Hattie? The author seems to have robbed her of all her hard work in the last pages of the story, and that was a very unsatisfying ending.
Still, I read the whole thing. I enjoyed the writing. I like the story as a whole (except for the ending). I loved the characters. Hence, 2 stars and not 1. But the author's ignorance made me start questioning everything that happened in the story, and that took away a lot of the fun.
Hattie expands as a character as her horizons expands, and that is also satisfying. She meets many interesting characters, who are her neighbors in the middle of the prairie where she lives. Each of them change her in different ways. All of that makes an enjoyable story.
*** spoiler alert *** this section contains spoilers *** spoiler alert
The author says she spent three years researching this book. I have to guess that this means three summer trips to Montana to, as she says, look at records. The writer's vast ignorance of living in the country, of doing the work that she describes her character doing, creates disconnects in the book that make it difficult to enjoy.
It is obvious the writer knows nothing about chickens. She has taken some information about "setting" hens, and believes that "setting" has something to do with laying. Hattie is given three hens by her neighbor as a gift. The neighbor also gives her a rooster. Hattie puts the chickens in the house while she builds them a coop. (Not the barn? Really? Chickens poop. A lot). The writer seems to imagine three separate nests that these chickens will "set" on. Hattie describes finding broken egg shells on the nests each morning. Taking the advice of a neighbor to make her hens "set," Hattie dunks one of the chickens in the water barrel several times. And that, she says, does the trick. (Did she then drink this water? Scared chickens poop!)
This is why fiction needs to be truthful. This example of pointless animal cruelty should not ever be repeated by anyone else.
Where to begin? A setting hen is a hen who is trying to hatch a nest full of eggs. A hen, from 5 months to about a year and a half, will regularly lay an egg a day (except when it's too cold, too hot, she's molting, the days are too short, or she's in a bad mood). Hens will continue laying when they're older, but less frequently. Hens in the same coop general have a favorite nesting place, and they will all use this same nest (which can create the amusing sight of hens sitting practically on top of one another, trying to lay at the same time). You don't want your hens "setting" if you want to eat the eggs. You do want your hen to set if you have enough eggs that you want to hatch out some chicks. Hattie doesn't need her hens to set, she needs them to lay, which they will do all by themselves with no assistance (with the exceptions listed above). Hens can't set anyway if they haven't already laid some eggs, so it is obvious the writer did not run this manuscript by anyone who knows anything about chickens. Also, roosters don't just crow at dawn. They crow all the time. I suppose eventually you just get used to it and only hear it when you're waking up -- at dawn. You don't need a rooster for your hens to lay. (Females ovulate without male assistance). You do need them to hatch chicks, which Hattie's chickens never do. If you come into the coop in the morning and there are eggshells and no eggs, it means a packrat or other rodent has gotten to your eggs, and you need to check your fencing.
Hattie's excellent range horse saves the lives of two children who are caught in a blizzard, by bringing them to her door clinging to his tail. Hattie takes the children indoors and then leaves the horse on the lee side of the house (the side not being hit by the wind) all night. Hattie has a perfectly good barn. The idea that she would leave a very good horse out in the blizzard when what she needs to do is put the horse in the barn with water and feed, is, well, inconceivable.
And speaking of the barn, Hattie arrives at her uncle's tar paper shack in January. Supposedly she heats this using the wood stove that she feeds with buffalo chips. It does not seem plausible that she can keep a tar paper shack heated in below-zero weather in such a manner. At the same time she has this perfectly good barn. Why doesn't she sleep there, where the cow and the horse can help keep it warm?
And another thing! I think we may assume that dried buffalo chips, being not as dense as wood, burn faster. If this is her source of fuel for cooking and heating, then where is her gigantic stack of buffalo chips? Why doesn't she spend any time at all during the book picking up new ones? If she filled her apron with buffalo chips, that would keep the stove going for maybe 2-3 hours, as a generous estimate. Imagine what a pile of chips she would need to burn to keep her warm in January for a whole day. Yet she never mentions a store of fuel in the barn, or bringing in more fuel.
Hattie has to build a mile and a half of fence to prove her claim. Strangely her uncle, though he acquired the materials on credit, did not begin this huge job. It is not clear what kind of fence Hattie builds. Poles and barbed wire seem the most likely in 1918, but Hattie is using a hammer and nails, and not setting poles. This is another place where the author has her character doing work that she doesn't not know how to do herself.
America's involvement in the First World War is part of the backdrop of this book. Hattie corresponds with her friend Charlie, who joined up prior to the book's beginning and is on his way to France. Charlie becomes an airplane mechanic. Strangely, he then ends up in the trenches, and in one letter reports losing 15 of his friends. The U.S. had an army of 4 million, of which we landed about a million in France by the summer of 1918, half of whom saw action, and 110,000 were killed. Charlie seems to be at war a lot earlier than the rest of the U.S. military, as he is sending letters from the front in the spring of 1918. It doesn't seem conceivable that an airplane mechanic would be transferred to the trenches in those few months before the war's end on Nov. 11, 1918.
In this story, this small section of Montana in this book is the subject of vicious jingoism, as her German neighbor's barn is burned and his two cows killed. One of the townsman is ritually humiliated until Hattie steps in, and everyone is blackmailed into buying war bonds and stamps, or else they are suspected of German sympathies. While these things did happen in the U.S. at that time, to have them all concentrated in one tiny community where neighbors have to rely on one another to survive, seems out of proportion, and made the book less enjoyable.
Hattie in the beginning is an orphan who turns out to have $400 in the bank from her parents. It seemed strange that all those relatives who passed her from one to another never managed to get hold of any of it. Her uncle doesn't leave her any money, and she is running out, when her relative sells her letters to him to the local paper without her permission, and she is hired to write one per month. This doesn't seem likely. First, that he would offer them without her permission, or that the copy that we are reading are worth $15 to a newspaper editor. Writing entertaining copy is work. To have her get this $15 per month (at a time when $1 a day was a man's wages for a 10-hour day) seems highly unlikely.
Because it is 1918, the author also includes the Spanish Flu pandemic in the story. Hattie is at her neighbor's house one day, and then next morning when she goes there, her friend and her four children are all prostrate from the flu, so ill that one of them dies. Spanish Influenza cases began in the U.S. in military installations. Then, it proceeded to the big cities, many of which reported hundreds dead during Sept-Dec 1918. How did pioneers in the middle of Montana contract a disease which at this time was seen on the East coast and in San Francisco? And how did they get so sick overnight? It doesn't make sense. Spanish flu notoriously killed the strong and healthy, while the old and young, who are usually most susceptible to the flu, survived. That doesn't happen in this case.
With all this ranch work to do (planting, harvesting, gardening, and building a mile and a half of fence), it is difficult to see where Hattie got the hours and hours to spend quilting between January and September, by which time she becomes an excellent quilt-maker. At night? By firelight? After all that hard physical labor? It doesn't say.
In the end, Hattie fails to prove her land, because she has too many debts. I didn't understand that at all. All through the process, she carefully saved out the $37.50 she would need to pay the fee for the claim. How is it she doesn't have this? Where did the $400 plus $15/month go? (Her uncle bought the fencing materials, and two months into her stay Hattie is informed by the store owner that her uncle didn't pay for it. Why didn't he go pick up the materials as they sat out in her uncle's barn all those months since the uncle took them? It doesn't make sense that he didn't explain the debt to Hattie when she arrived. And why should she believe that her uncle didn't pay this debt?)
As soon as Hattie pays $37.50 she will own 320 acres of land, which she can then sell. This is what the author's great grandmother, who inspired this story, did. Why doesn't Hattie? The author seems to have robbed her of all her hard work in the last pages of the story, and that was a very unsatisfying ending.
Still, I read the whole thing. I enjoyed the writing. I like the story as a whole (except for the ending). I loved the characters. Hence, 2 stars and not 1. But the author's ignorance made me start questioning everything that happened in the story, and that took away a lot of the fun.
November 1, 2018
4.5 🌟
Hattie Brooks is an orphan, living with her uncle and annoying aunt when she received a letter saying that her maternal uncle leaved his inheritance which includes a house and some 300 acres land in Montana to her. She decided to go so she packed up and got on the train. Here is where her adventure begun.
I really, really like Hattie. She got some wit and very funny. I learned this a few pages in and instantly like her. She's just 16 years old but the way she thinks is so matured for her age. I can't say much more if I don't want to spoil. Enough to say that not everything is going as planned. God works in most mysterious ways.
April 14, 2025
5 shining stars. this made me both laugh out loud & cry actual tears on more than one occasion; the development of Hattie's friendship with the Muellers is so precious. I really appreciated the realism of the story, in its portrayal of Montana frontier life, in the various ways that the war touched Hattie's community there, & in the heartache & hope shining through her experiences during one year of homesteading her claim & finding a place & people to belong to, for the first time.
November 15, 2021
What a wonderful story! I loved Hattie and her Montana neighbors.
I listened to this story, narrated by Kristin Potter.
I listened to this story, narrated by Kristin Potter.
September 7, 2020
A good friend of mine recommended this book to me and I absolutely loved it! In my opinion, this book deserved to win the Newbery Medal in 2007, not just the Newbery Honor.
Thoughts for a review:
* I loved the WWI setting and all the rich historical details from that time. I am always looking for more great WWI books, especially middle grade. There is so much WWII literature out there (which I love!) but I find this time fascinating as well. Some intriguing details: the start of daylight savings time, glory of war vs reality of war, food shortages and rationing, German treatment in America, how to show patriotism
*Loved Hattie as the protagonist. She begins the story unsure of herself and what her place is in the world. Even calls herself Hattie Here and There. But her journey is fantastic! She works so hard to prove up on her claim, she builds great relationships with her neighbors, and tries to do what is right. I loved reading about her experiences baking, milking her cow, fending off the wolf from her cow, reading books, playing with the Mueller children, and becoming a part of a community.
*I learned so much about homestead
*Great supporting characters with vibrant personalities and realistic opinions and conflicts. I thought Rooster Jim was hilarious with his quirky ways, the bicycle incident, his chess games with Hattie, his stinky aroma, and his kindness with the chickens. Loved Leafie because she is a classic quirky herbalist woman. She doesn't take any crap from anyone and she defends whats right with loyalty and passion. Even Traft Martin was an intriguing character because he could play both sides and put on a face for others. He claims high patriotism but sometimes seemed malicious and untrustworthy.
*Loved Hattie's relationship with the Mueller family most. I loved how she and Perilee become more like sisters. I love the way she comes to care for their children. I love that Karl helps her in her planting. And the tragic climax was very moving for me.
*Lots of interesting themes discussed in this novel in poignant, moving, and well developed ways. Racism against those of other country or ancestry, what is patriotism and how do you show it? how should you treat other people? are there reasons to be violent or exclusionary because of someone's background? how much work is necessary to build a home?
*loved the way each chapter started with a letter or an excerpt from Hattie's newspaper articles she sent back to Iowa. It was a fun twist in the novel. I really enjoyed reading her letters to Charlie on the front. Would have liked even more letters included.
*The ending surprised me but also was satisfying because everything isn't perfectly tied up and happily ever after. This book offers a lot of great historical details about homesteading life. It wasn't easy. Things went wrong. Money was tight. Natural disasters happened. And Montana was the land of "better next year"
*Loved that Larson bases the whole story on her own ancestor's experience homesteading alone in Montana. That makes the story even cooler! And loved the recipes at the end of the novel.
I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it for older middle grade readers and beyond.
Thoughts for a review:
* I loved the WWI setting and all the rich historical details from that time. I am always looking for more great WWI books, especially middle grade. There is so much WWII literature out there (which I love!) but I find this time fascinating as well. Some intriguing details: the start of daylight savings time, glory of war vs reality of war, food shortages and rationing, German treatment in America, how to show patriotism
*Loved Hattie as the protagonist. She begins the story unsure of herself and what her place is in the world. Even calls herself Hattie Here and There. But her journey is fantastic! She works so hard to prove up on her claim, she builds great relationships with her neighbors, and tries to do what is right. I loved reading about her experiences baking, milking her cow, fending off the wolf from her cow, reading books, playing with the Mueller children, and becoming a part of a community.
*I learned so much about homestead
*Great supporting characters with vibrant personalities and realistic opinions and conflicts. I thought Rooster Jim was hilarious with his quirky ways, the bicycle incident, his chess games with Hattie, his stinky aroma, and his kindness with the chickens. Loved Leafie because she is a classic quirky herbalist woman. She doesn't take any crap from anyone and she defends whats right with loyalty and passion. Even Traft Martin was an intriguing character because he could play both sides and put on a face for others. He claims high patriotism but sometimes seemed malicious and untrustworthy.
*Loved Hattie's relationship with the Mueller family most. I loved how she and Perilee become more like sisters. I love the way she comes to care for their children. I love that Karl helps her in her planting. And the tragic climax was very moving for me.
*Lots of interesting themes discussed in this novel in poignant, moving, and well developed ways. Racism against those of other country or ancestry, what is patriotism and how do you show it? how should you treat other people? are there reasons to be violent or exclusionary because of someone's background? how much work is necessary to build a home?
*loved the way each chapter started with a letter or an excerpt from Hattie's newspaper articles she sent back to Iowa. It was a fun twist in the novel. I really enjoyed reading her letters to Charlie on the front. Would have liked even more letters included.
*The ending surprised me but also was satisfying because everything isn't perfectly tied up and happily ever after. This book offers a lot of great historical details about homesteading life. It wasn't easy. Things went wrong. Money was tight. Natural disasters happened. And Montana was the land of "better next year"
*Loved that Larson bases the whole story on her own ancestor's experience homesteading alone in Montana. That makes the story even cooler! And loved the recipes at the end of the novel.
I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it for older middle grade readers and beyond.
March 22, 2010
Year Published: 2006
Awards: Newbery Honor Award, ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book, ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies trade book for young people, Book Sense 76 Pick, Barnes & Noble Teen Discover Selection, Borders Original Voices for Young Adults Selection, Booklist Editor's Choice, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
Age Level: 12-adult
This book is the story of Hattie Brooks, who is a young 16 year old orphan from Iowa. Throughout her life she has lived with various distant relatives and does not feel like she has that family that everyone else seems to have. One day she gets a letter from her uncle who had staked a claim in Vida, Montana. He has passed away and left his claim to her and hopes she can work the claim and be able to own it by the end of the 3 years. Hattie moves out to Montana and meets some wonderful people who become like a family to her. Along the way she learns about life on the open range in the wild west and she learns lots of lessons.
I am a huge fan of historical fiction and I loved this story. I picked this book up a few months ago in my school library and started reading part of it. I wanted to check it out, but forgot the title. A few months later, I found it on the shelf and could not wait to read it. It details the life of a young woman who tries to keep her claim in the wild west, which many single women did not do in these days. It was a hard life for her. Meanwhile she meets many good friends in the small town of Vida who become like family to her. World War I is raging in Europe and her good friend is over in France fighting. She writes many letters to her friend Charlie and tells about life on the claim. She also writes to her Uncle Holt in Iowa who she lived with before moving to Montana. Uncle Holt is an avid reader of Atlantic Monthly magazine and turns in some of her letters to the editor. In turn, he offers Hattie a job of writing about life on the claim and she ends up writing a monthly article for the magazine.
Because WW I is going on many people at this time became prejudice of anyone who was German and therefor many immigrants were scorned, even in the small town of Vida in Montana. Even people who had been here for generations were scorned.
I thought this was an accurate representation of the time period and what people might have been going through in 1917 and 1918. Hattie is a strong character that represents many women of this era.
Awards: Newbery Honor Award, ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book, ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies trade book for young people, Book Sense 76 Pick, Barnes & Noble Teen Discover Selection, Borders Original Voices for Young Adults Selection, Booklist Editor's Choice, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
Age Level: 12-adult
This book is the story of Hattie Brooks, who is a young 16 year old orphan from Iowa. Throughout her life she has lived with various distant relatives and does not feel like she has that family that everyone else seems to have. One day she gets a letter from her uncle who had staked a claim in Vida, Montana. He has passed away and left his claim to her and hopes she can work the claim and be able to own it by the end of the 3 years. Hattie moves out to Montana and meets some wonderful people who become like a family to her. Along the way she learns about life on the open range in the wild west and she learns lots of lessons.
I am a huge fan of historical fiction and I loved this story. I picked this book up a few months ago in my school library and started reading part of it. I wanted to check it out, but forgot the title. A few months later, I found it on the shelf and could not wait to read it. It details the life of a young woman who tries to keep her claim in the wild west, which many single women did not do in these days. It was a hard life for her. Meanwhile she meets many good friends in the small town of Vida who become like family to her. World War I is raging in Europe and her good friend is over in France fighting. She writes many letters to her friend Charlie and tells about life on the claim. She also writes to her Uncle Holt in Iowa who she lived with before moving to Montana. Uncle Holt is an avid reader of Atlantic Monthly magazine and turns in some of her letters to the editor. In turn, he offers Hattie a job of writing about life on the claim and she ends up writing a monthly article for the magazine.
Because WW I is going on many people at this time became prejudice of anyone who was German and therefor many immigrants were scorned, even in the small town of Vida in Montana. Even people who had been here for generations were scorned.
I thought this was an accurate representation of the time period and what people might have been going through in 1917 and 1918. Hattie is a strong character that represents many women of this era.
August 9, 2024
8/09/08
I just finished listening to this book again. I absolutely love this book. It is wonderful, fantastic, terrific! In fact, since it came out about a year or two ago, I have read it (eyes or ears) seven times. This book is considered a teen novel, but I can't think of an adult who would be disappointed by this adventure story.
Hattie is a 16 year old orphan who is suddenly given the opportunity to prove up on her deceased uncle's claim in Montana. This is a pioneer adventure with a twist. Instead of Laura Ingall's time, Hattie is homesteading in Montana during World War I. The best part of all is that the story is based on Kirby Larson's grandma's (I think grandma)real life. Wonderful, wonderful!
Jeffrey met Kirby Larson at a reading conference and she was as engaging as her novel.
You know how I am with favorites - especially books. But, based on frequency of reading, this one is fast moving into the number one position. Let me know what you think.
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I listened to this again in early December. In fact, I just keep it on my iPod. I really love this book.
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6/15/09
I just finished listening to this book again. Hattie is a girl with pluck. Yep, good old fashioned pluck. Her story is perfect accompaniment to my chores, and I find myself listening to her story over and over again.
9/23/09
Read it again on audiobook. Still wonderful.
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1/8/10
Just finished it again on audiobook. I swear this gets better every time.
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12/28/09
Based on my iTunes record, I listen to this book every three months.
6/16/2011
Just listened to it again. How can a book I've read more than ten times still make me cry at the end?
2/5/12 Another listen. I can hardly wait for Kirby Larson to write the rest of Hattie's story.
8/18/12
This is my go-to audiobook. I love it so much I just listen to it any time I am between books.
4/26/13
Kirby Larson finally wrote the rest of Hattie's story. Of course, I had to reread this one before I read it.
5/16/14
Listened to the book again. Made me cry again.
1/11/19
I didn't cry this time, but I loved it just as much.
read count: 19
I just finished listening to this book again. I absolutely love this book. It is wonderful, fantastic, terrific! In fact, since it came out about a year or two ago, I have read it (eyes or ears) seven times. This book is considered a teen novel, but I can't think of an adult who would be disappointed by this adventure story.
Hattie is a 16 year old orphan who is suddenly given the opportunity to prove up on her deceased uncle's claim in Montana. This is a pioneer adventure with a twist. Instead of Laura Ingall's time, Hattie is homesteading in Montana during World War I. The best part of all is that the story is based on Kirby Larson's grandma's (I think grandma)real life. Wonderful, wonderful!
Jeffrey met Kirby Larson at a reading conference and she was as engaging as her novel.
You know how I am with favorites - especially books. But, based on frequency of reading, this one is fast moving into the number one position. Let me know what you think.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I listened to this again in early December. In fact, I just keep it on my iPod. I really love this book.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6/15/09
I just finished listening to this book again. Hattie is a girl with pluck. Yep, good old fashioned pluck. Her story is perfect accompaniment to my chores, and I find myself listening to her story over and over again.
9/23/09
Read it again on audiobook. Still wonderful.
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1/8/10
Just finished it again on audiobook. I swear this gets better every time.
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12/28/09
Based on my iTunes record, I listen to this book every three months.
6/16/2011
Just listened to it again. How can a book I've read more than ten times still make me cry at the end?
2/5/12 Another listen. I can hardly wait for Kirby Larson to write the rest of Hattie's story.
8/18/12
This is my go-to audiobook. I love it so much I just listen to it any time I am between books.
4/26/13
Kirby Larson finally wrote the rest of Hattie's story. Of course, I had to reread this one before I read it.
5/16/14
Listened to the book again. Made me cry again.
1/11/19
I didn't cry this time, but I loved it just as much.
read count: 19
November 30, 2010
Hattie Brooks inherits her uncle's Montana claim in 1917. As a sixteen-year-old orphan, the chance to have a place of her own proved to be the driving force behind her determination to prove the claim. Moving from Iowa to Montana, Hattie encounters plenty of obstacles during her first year in this World War I novel.
Written in first person, Hattie Inez Brooks has called herself "Hattie Here And There" since her parents died. Passed around from one relative to the next, she jumps at the chance to move to Montana and finish proving her uncle's claim. For the first time, she feels like she will have a place to call her very own. She exchanges letters quite often with a very close friend, Charlie, who is in Europe fighting during World War I. After her arrival in Montana she makes some very close friends, and also learns that the war in Europe is having a profound effect on the people of Montana as well, producing strong anti-German sentiment. She learns to battle the elements, run a fence line, work with animals, plant crops and how to deal with prejudice and loss.
Inspired by the author's Great-grandmother by the same name, the reader is given a look at what life was like for many late 19th century and early 20th century pioneers. The feelings of anti-German sentiment in the novel was accurate to the time period, and mirrors current anti-Muslim sentiment that has been stirred during war. It will challenge readers to see current issues and reminds of the destructiveness of hate. Well researched, the book is difficult to put down. Hattie is a character that is easy to like and you want the best for her. Includes recipes, author's note, bibliography for further reading.
One of my new favorite books.
Written in first person, Hattie Inez Brooks has called herself "Hattie Here And There" since her parents died. Passed around from one relative to the next, she jumps at the chance to move to Montana and finish proving her uncle's claim. For the first time, she feels like she will have a place to call her very own. She exchanges letters quite often with a very close friend, Charlie, who is in Europe fighting during World War I. After her arrival in Montana she makes some very close friends, and also learns that the war in Europe is having a profound effect on the people of Montana as well, producing strong anti-German sentiment. She learns to battle the elements, run a fence line, work with animals, plant crops and how to deal with prejudice and loss.
Inspired by the author's Great-grandmother by the same name, the reader is given a look at what life was like for many late 19th century and early 20th century pioneers. The feelings of anti-German sentiment in the novel was accurate to the time period, and mirrors current anti-Muslim sentiment that has been stirred during war. It will challenge readers to see current issues and reminds of the destructiveness of hate. Well researched, the book is difficult to put down. Hattie is a character that is easy to like and you want the best for her. Includes recipes, author's note, bibliography for further reading.
One of my new favorite books.
January 17, 2016
Sometimes, the simple things in life are also the most beautiful. I feel like this certainly holds true for this book.
This historical fiction about a young girl's ventures in homestead farming in 1890's Montana reads mostly like a well written and delightful middle-grade fiction. I really liked Hattie's voice in the book. It is an earnest and hardworking person's voice, with an undercurrent of spunk. There are a lot of interesting side characters and wonderful friendships to be had in this story. The bad guys are complicated. And I love Charlie, which is a mystery all in it self, because Charlie hardly features in the book. That speaks to the power of the pen, letter writing is a powerful medium. And I'm won over not just by Hattie but by Charlie because of the letters throughout the story. The book is well researched. I love that the inspiration for the book is the author's own grandmother. The story won't take you by surprise, the ups and downs in the book are fairly predictable. But what is lacking in plot twists, is more than made up for by the succinctness of writing, the warmth of the friendships and the powerful descriptions in the story . Here's a flaxseed field for you, right out of the story. You're welcome.
This book made me think of the simple pleasures of life and the fortune of having good friends. It's the little things you gotta be grateful for. So in that spirit, I'm grateful for this book.
This historical fiction about a young girl's ventures in homestead farming in 1890's Montana reads mostly like a well written and delightful middle-grade fiction. I really liked Hattie's voice in the book. It is an earnest and hardworking person's voice, with an undercurrent of spunk. There are a lot of interesting side characters and wonderful friendships to be had in this story. The bad guys are complicated. And I love Charlie, which is a mystery all in it self, because Charlie hardly features in the book. That speaks to the power of the pen, letter writing is a powerful medium. And I'm won over not just by Hattie but by Charlie because of the letters throughout the story. The book is well researched. I love that the inspiration for the book is the author's own grandmother. The story won't take you by surprise, the ups and downs in the book are fairly predictable. But what is lacking in plot twists, is more than made up for by the succinctness of writing, the warmth of the friendships and the powerful descriptions in the story . Here's a flaxseed field for you, right out of the story. You're welcome.
This book made me think of the simple pleasures of life and the fortune of having good friends. It's the little things you gotta be grateful for. So in that spirit, I'm grateful for this book.
July 3, 2013
Fans of pioneer stories and Little House on the Prairie will like this one as those who like stories with strong females with an independent spirit.
In 1918, 16 year old Hattie moves from Iowa to Eastern Montana to homestead her deceased uncle's land.
Not only does she face the challenges of farming and living off the land, there is a War going on in Europe. Prejudice against all things German is alive and well in her small town, Vida. Her good friend Charlie (from her previous life in Iowa) has enlisted and is overseas in France.
Will Hattie be able to put up fences, raise chickens and harvest crops? Will she be able to stand up for what she believes in when threatened by those that do not? And what about Charlie, is he more than just a friend?
In 1918, 16 year old Hattie moves from Iowa to Eastern Montana to homestead her deceased uncle's land.
Not only does she face the challenges of farming and living off the land, there is a War going on in Europe. Prejudice against all things German is alive and well in her small town, Vida. Her good friend Charlie (from her previous life in Iowa) has enlisted and is overseas in France.
Will Hattie be able to put up fences, raise chickens and harvest crops? Will she be able to stand up for what she believes in when threatened by those that do not? And what about Charlie, is he more than just a friend?
September 13, 2013
I loved the strong, courageous, and vulnerable protagonist, as well as the realistic, complex resolution.
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