Hattie Brooks is an orphan. In 1918, when she is 16, she inherits a lonely Montana homestead from her uncle. After many years of being dependent on the charity of relatives who aren't all that happy to take her in, Hattie is overjoyed at the prospect of having a home where she belongs and that belongs to her.

Her optimism does not prepare her for the hardships she will face as a young woman, alone, desperately trying to survive the harsh realities of a homesteader's life.

Hattie's voice is engaging and the first-person narration works beautifully. Hattie's story is based on some real-life events, including some parts based on the life of the author's great-grandmother.

Don't let the boring cover fool you! This is a marvelous book that anyone who enjoys historical fiction or survival stories will enjoy. ( )

very good historical realistic fiction book about a girl who is 16 and takes over her dead uncles farm in Montana ( )

At 16, brave and strong Hattie heads into the unknown to farm her legacy, a homestead from an uncle she never knew.

The author based the story on the experiences of her own relative, adding in a plotline about the mistreatment of German Americans during the WWI era and letting several characters succumb to the Spanish influenza. Hattie also handily has a friend serving behind the trenches in France to provide a contrast with the draft-dodging vigilante patriots of Montana.

Kirby Larson's own relative "proved up" her claim when she was a very young woman, giving credence to this book, but Hattie still seems a bit too good to be true, and some of the historical details also ring false (people head back to their cars in 1917 Iowa? must be a wealthy little burg. and did people really use the term "pity party" back then?).

To get the story rolling (which the reader might appreciate, if the device to do so didn't feel contrived), Hattie is told by her current foster family that she has to drop out of school and earn her keep at a boardinghouse, but by golly right then she gets a letter telling her that her long-lost uncle bequeathed her his Montana homestead claim. So off Hattie goes to meet her new neighbors, the steadfast taciturn farmer Karl and his better-than-homebaked wife, steadfast and nurturing Perilee (and what sort of name is that?).

Spunky Hattie soon encounters another stock character, handsome but possibly evil Traft Martin (again with the name), whose dowager mother rules the devoutly self-righteous of the nearby town. Other neighbors include a doctoring feminist, a helpful lawyer and an unwashed but clean-spirited homesteader.

Still, even the stock characters have more than one-dimension and the story of the joys and hazards of making one's own way in the world compels the reader forward to a believable ending that may well leave him/her longing for a sequel. The descriptions of the hard work of homesteading and the beauties and soul of the land enrich the novel.

A longer author's note or more detailed description in the text of what "proving up a claim" entails would be helpful. And perhaps I missed it, but "honyocker," the oft-used term for homesteader, is never explained nor pronounced.

(I found this on the Web site honyockers.com: "The term 'honyockers' seems to have originated in Montana in the 1890’s and was used by the ranchers there until sometime around 1920 to identify groups of people they termed . . . 'homesteaders,' 'squatters' . . . One needs to remember that the ranchers and cowboys did not have much use for these early settlers because as they fenced and plowed the land, it generally made it harder for ranchers to run their cattle. My research has led me to believe that the term 'honyocker' is probably much the same as today’s 'dirt farmer.'" Seems an unlikely title for a column in an Iowa newspaper, in that case.) ( )

Reviewed by Grandma Bev for TeensReadToo.com

To me, the main criteria for a good book is a cast of great characters, and this book definitely has that. Hattie is a very mature 16-year-old. She is an orphan who has been raised by first one relative and then another, and now she finds that she has inherited a homestead from an uncle that she never really knew. Her best friend has just joined the army to go fight the Kaiser in Germany at the outbreak of World War I. Hattie boards a train with her cat, Mr. Whiskers, to claim her new home in Montana.

When she arrives, she discovers that she will be required to finish "proving up" on the homestead...build an enormous amount of fence, and plant eighty of the three-hundred-and-twenty acres in wheat and flax, and she only has eight months left to accomplish this. The house is a one-room cabin that is barely habitable, and winter has Montana in its grip. Her livestock consists of a very congenial horse, and a contentious cow.

Hattie is a very resourceful girl, but life is difficult. Most of her new neighbors become fast friends, but some desperately want to claim her land for their own. Her dear friends, the Mullers, suffer bad treatment because of their German heritage and the War.

This is a fast-paced story of adventure with friendship, heartbreak, and joy. The believable characters will remain with you long after you have read the book, and the handsome villain isn't all bad. The suspense in this very entertaining book builds to a surprising climax that I didn't anticipate. Larson adds a couple of interesting-looking recipes in the back of the book that I'm anxious to try out, along with a bibliography of other great reading about the American West and homesteading. ( )

Somehow World War I and homesteading never seemed to have happened at the same time...but this marvelous story of a brave young woman who worked so hard and was influenced by world events was such a powerful book. I loved Hattie and her caring neighbors. This is historical fiction at its best! ( )