Year Published: 2006Awards: 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 YearAge Level: 12-adultThis 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.
I enjoyed reading Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson and I am glad that I did. The conflict that Hattie faces to prove up her homestead is believable. The troubles she encounters and the obstacles she has to find a way to overcome find their way to make the novel out to be very convincing. The setting enabled the book to be all the more intriguing, but was not overdone with all the unnecessary usual boring details. The sky is described often, and at first the title troubled me until I learned that Montana is known as “Big Sky Country.” Now that I know this knowledge, I feel the novel name fits perfectly. I favored the pace, the humor, and the fact that it is historical fiction. I also commend the author on how she included letters consistently through from Hattie’s uncle and her “school chum” Charlie. I found the ones Hattie received back to be of interest. It was always exciting to see those italicized words that the letters held. I never found any part of the book confusing. I felt as if I knew Hattie well and thoroughly. I admired the way she always stood up for herself and the deep care she possessed for others. She’s determined, persistent, and at times hard-headed. The other characters were described efficiently as well. Her love-hate relationship with Traft Martin made the book seem even more realistic. Even though Hattie’s aunt was not a main character, the author still found a way for the reader to understand her aunt’s ways and opinions completely. The only factor I would say turned out to be disappointing is the way the author finished off the novel. I felt like the resolution was rushed, and did not turn out the way that it needed to or should have. The ending chapters gave me the impression that the author became sick of writing, and therefore the last chapters are dissatisfying. If the conclusion would have been better, this novel would have been a five-star rating by my judgment. Far as recommendations go, the people who would like reading this are the ones who prefer or have at least a bit of interest in the genre of historical fiction. Anybody with an open mind might find themselves pleasantly surprised by how much they would enjoy this novel also.
SPOILER ALERTSummary: Hattie Inez Brooks has been passed around from relative to relative all her life until her Uncle Chester leaves her a claim to stake in Montana. She eagerly leaves her kindly Uncle Holt and prickly Aunt Ivy's home in Iowa to make it on her own. Once Hattie arrives in Vida, Montana, she realizes that she already has some debt she owes from her Uncle Chester. She works very hard all through the severe winter, with the help of her friend Perilee Mueller and her family. Spring comes and Hattie finishes the long fence she had to put up, and she learns about the anti-German feelings that people have when Perilee's kind and generous husband, Karl, is targeted. Through the seasons, Hattie must work very hard to prove up on her claim before November while also gaining a true sense of belonging with the people she loves near Vida. She learns generosity and the meaning of loyalty with Perilee's family, and she writes of her adventures to her school friend, Charlie, who is fighting the Kaiser in France, her Uncle Holt, and in a column called Honyocker's Homily for the paper back in Iowa. In the end, Perilee loses one of her children and decides to leave Montana, the war ends and Charlie comes home, admitting that he likes Hattie, while Hattie loses her claim due to debt. Although this ending may be bittersweet, Hattie does at last find a home in herself, and she learns to love the people around her.Evaluation: I think this book lacked somewhat of a resolution and kind of tied up quickly. I liked the character development of Hattie very much but I was sad to see her lose the claim that she had worked so hard for. And whereas I thought she might at least end up with Charlie, that was left very open and uncertain. The book did bring a sense of real life to the time that it was describing, which I thought was interesting, especially after reading the author's note about this story being based on her great-grandmother's life. I thought it was a good book, but maybe not one of my favorites. I seem to prefer happy endings more when I am reading for pleasure, and I was really sad when Mattie died. I do think I would use this book in maybe a 4th or 5th grade classroom.
—Krysten
I loved this book! The writing is as lovely as a blue prairie sky and the story is as relevant as a bowl of stew on a cold winter's day. Okay, perhaps I'm getting carried away, but something about this book makes me want to dig for my roots and write. That is exactly what Kirby Larson did. She learned her great-grandmother was a homesteader as a young, single woman and she wanted to learn more. As is often the case with family stories, her great-grandmother was gone before her story was recorded. Instead, Larson dug through piles of diaries and newspapers to compose her beautiful tale. I'm sure that in the process she discovered a bit about both herself and her family. I missed a lecture the author did a little over a year ago in this area (was on a trip with my hubby), and am hoping a can dig up the notes from somebody.Here are a couple of highlights I want to remember about the book... I love how Hattie gets some sage wisdom from unexpected sources--an eight-year old boy, a scraggly man who would hardly recognize a bath, and a woman who is both a tough horse tamer and a healer/herbalist. I especially loved the moment toward the end with Rooster Jim (p. 268-9) where you find a carefully articulated construction of the book's theme without an in-your-face effect. Meaningful and lovely!(This coming paragraph might call for a slight spoiler alert.) I also was wowed by this metaphoric passage: "I sat quiet and alone. No tears. No shaking my fist at God. Nothing but a heavy stone in my chest that used to be a heart filled with dreams and possibilities. There should be fireworks, at least, when a dream dies. But no, this one had blown apart as easily as a dandelion gone to seed."Can I say it again? I loved this book!
—JaNeal
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
—Mary
