Hattie Big Sky

Bibliographic Information: Larson, K. (2007), Hattie big sky. New York: Yearling. ISBN: 978-0385735957

Plot Summary: Sixteen-year old Hattie “here-and-there” is an orphan who’s been ushered around from one relative to the next (hence her nickname) and currently resides with her self-righteous Aunt Ivy and Uncle Holt in 1917 Iowa. She writes often to her school friend (and love interest) Charlie, who is off fighting the Kaiser in Germany. On the same day that Aunt Ivy hints at sending Hattie to work in a boarding house, she receives a mysterious letter from her late Uncle Chester—offering an opportunity at a brand new life. In the letter, he offers her the chance to claim his land and house in Montana, as well as one horse and cow. With a little nudging from Uncle Holt, and much to Aunt Ivy’s dismay, Hattie gets on a train headed west.

            When she arrives, a man on the train criticize her for getting off where there’s “a whole lotta nothin’,” but this doesn’t deter Hattie, as she soon meets her friendly neighbors, the Muellers. Perilee, mother to three and expecting a fourth, offers Hattie a warm welcome and gets her acquainted to he homestead life. Even the children offer her sound advice, like fetching water for her morning coffee the night before—that way she won’t have to face the bitter cold as soon as she wakes up. And cold it is. Over the course of a year, Hattie deals with blizzards, wolves, a stubborn cow, and exhausting physical labor and she tends to the land and struggles to survive the harsh weather. Still, the vast beauty and “big sky” that surrounds her is a welcome embrace compared to the rejection she as faced time and time again.                        

            Conflicts rise as local residents become suspicious of German immigrants (Perilee’s husband Karl is German) and the villainous Traft Martin tries to oust him. Hattie tries to defend this loving family she has come to know, insisting that they are patriotic and harmless, but with WWI looming overseas, paranoia rises and prejudice is rampant. Now, on top of her physical stress, Hattie is pressured with the duty of patriotism, and is persuaded to buy liberty bonds that turn her prospects into poverty. Then the Muellers are struck with the Spanish influenza, and Hattie is pushed to her limit. As it turns out, a teenage girl’s hard work and determination can only get her so far.

Critical Evaluation: This tale of American turn-of-the-century farm life is told through the unique perspective of the strong-willed, good-natured, Hattie, who is wise for her age, but has room to grow. She interacts with her neighbors and the community (even the despicable characters) with grace and keen moral judgment—a skill she’s picked up from having been put down all of her life. Through her trials, Hattie represents the complex nature of growing up: one has to not only adapt to new surroundings, but work hard, and defend what’s right in a world full of wrong. Her disgust at the prejudice against Germans opens her eyes to the real world, and makes her all the stronger.

Reader’s Annotation: Hattie proves up her Uncle’s claim to tend a homestead and 320 acres of land in Montana, with nothing but her valise and Mr. Whiskers, her cat.

Author Information: Gale’s Contemporary Authors Online states, “Kirby Larson began her writing career penning chapter books while seated at her kitchen table, setting aside her work to serve up her family's meals. Never a prolific writer, she has nonetheless gained critical praise for creating good-humored stories that accurately reflect the problems and concerns of children in the early elementary grades. Larson focused on plot and character development in her chapter books Second-Grade Pig Pals and Cody and Quinn, Sitting in a Tree, as well as in her picture book The Magic Kerchief. Her focus on such details paid off when she turned to older readers in her young-adult novel Hattie Big Sky. The sixth book written by Larson over a span of a dozen years, Hattie Blue Sky earned the Washington State author a prestigious Newbery Honor designation from the American Library Association following its 2006 publication.

Larson's first two chapter books, Second-Grade Pig Pals and Cody and Quinn, Sitting in a Tree, introduce a second grader named Quinn. In addition to worries about celebrating a holiday devoted to swine in Second-Grade Pig Day, Quinn finds herself with friend problems when her efforts to befriend Manuela, a new student, are foiled by more-aggressive classmate Annie May. The class bully, with his relentless taunting, tries to ruin Quinn's friendship with a boy in Cody and Quinn, Sitting in a Tree. Susan Dove Lempke, reviewing Larson's first book in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, predicted that young readers will enjoy following Quinn's "travails as she agonizes, in true-to-life second-grade fashion, over the pigs and Manuela." Quinn's solution to her dilemma, which involves the girls working together to compose a limerick about pigs, gives the book a "whole-hoggedly satisfying ending," in the opinion of School Library Journal contributor Janet M. Bair. In Cody and Quinn, Sitting in a Tree Quinn and company "act out this typical school story with a generous measure of humor and sensitivity," concluded Pat Mathews in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, and Kay Weisman declared in Booklist that "Larson has an accurate sense of seven-year-olds' preoccupations and a good ear for dialogue" in the title.”

Genre: Historical Fiction

Subjects: orphans, World War I, racism, patriotism, farms, Montana,

Curriculum Ties: World War I, Race and Society

Booktalking Ideas: How does Hattie’s story parallel the opportunities for women today?

Reading Level/Interest Age: 12+

Challenge Issues/Defense: N/A

Reason for Selection: This was a Newbury Honor book as well as an ALA Best Book for YA’s. No library collection would be complete without a warm-hearted historical prairie type novel.