Becoming Hattie Mae: A Hardscrabble Life in an Appalachian Holler

Summertime 1929. Hattie Mae Sizemore lives with her family in a Kentucky holler. Her father is a coal miner and a moonshiner. Determined to shield his oldest from the influence of outsiders, he declares Hattie won’t return to school. She is distraught, not even having a single book of her own.

When she accompanies her Granny Guthrie to a charity sale, a gypsy peddler passes through their camp. He stirs a restless feeling inside Hattie to see people and places she has only imagined. At the sale, she discovers a small book and carries it home.

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