Hattie Ever After (Hattie Brooks #2)

Hattie Ever After by Kriby Larson is the long awaited follow up to her Hattie Big Sky novel about a young woman who attempted to be a homesteader in Montana in the early 1900s.

Now that Hattie Inez Brooks has failed to meet the criteria for keeping the homestead claim left to her by an uncle she never knew, she must decide where life will take her next. She grew up being passed from one relative to another and does not wish to go back Iowa. She has had some letter published in a paper back home and longs to be a real reporter like Nelly Bly.

When a vaudevillian troupe comes through town on their way to San Fransisco, Hattie joins them as a wardrobe girl - repairing costumes to pay her way West. San Fransisco in 1919 is a magical time and place in the history of the United States and Hattie will attempt to get a job a newspaper.

Larson is a through researcher and has captured life in 1919 California, after the big earthquake, when one of the great debates was whether women, who were shoved into the workforce during WWI, should work outside the home. Her stories are fascinating and Hattie is one of the most loveable historical characters ever created, sort of a young American version of a Maisie Dobbs - someone who was not satisfied to remain relegated to her proscribed societal role based solely on her gender.

Larson, Kirby. (2013). Hattie Ever After. New York: Delacourte Press.

Hattie Big Sky

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson is the fictionalized story of Larson's great-grandmother, a homesteader in Montana in the early 1900s.

At the opening of the story Hattie lives with an aunt and uncle in Arlington, Iowa. They are not really her aunt and uncle, she has already been moved to about all of her living relatives. Now she is about to be handed over to work in a boarding house.

Just in time she receives a letter from her mother's brother. He was a homesteader in Montana. Before he died he left the land to Hattie. She has one year to fulfill the requirements and 320 acres will be hers.

So, off she goes to Montana to learn to be a farmer. And she will be doing it on her own with the help of colorful neighbors who lend a hand when they can spare it.

Hattie Big Sky is a heartwarming story of a part of our nations history. Many changes happen during the story that historically took place during the years around 1918. Once read, it is not a surprise that this novel won the Newberry Award.

Larson, Kirby. (2007). Hattie Big Sky. New York: Delacorte Press.