Parenthetical.net

Sixteen-year-old Hattie was orphaned as a small child and has been bouncing from relative to relative ever since. When an uncle she’s never met dies and leaves her his 320-acre Montana claim, with only one year left to prove up on it before ownership reverts back to the government, she sees her chance to finally make a life of her own. It’s a pioneer story set during WWI, not the 19th century, so the sociopolitical issues are less dark skin and the wild wild west and more German immigrants and the draft.

I will say up front that I don’t think of myself as a historical fiction lover. But that’s because I didn’t get into it as a kid, not because I don’t enjoy it now. When I was in middle school, I would have looked at Hattie standing there in her plain dress gazing out over the Newbery-embossed prairie and I would have scoffed “BO-RING!” and hightailed it back to the sci-fi section. My kids have the same reaction (except that most of them are hightailing it back to “realistic” modern fiction, usually pink with cover pictures of sassy girls in preppy cardigans).

As an adult, I loved it. I laughed, I cried (yes, really), I want to try the recipes in the back. Will skeptical kids actually love this if they can be convinced to open it? In the case of Monkey Town, which felt similar in many ways, I’d say yes — there’s enough romance and adventure to keep an adolescent interested. Unfortunately, I suspect the answer with Hattie Big Sky is no.

I loved it because I’m these days I’m all about home and “love makes a family.” But as a kid, would I have wanted to read a whole book about claim law, neighbor children, and milking recalcitrant cows? Hell, no — this book requires maturity I didn’t have when I was the target age. Not to mention that the ending is realistic and poignant, but not satisfying or “happy” enough for most kids. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear this is a Newbery shelf-sitter.