Point of View

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson is written entirely in the first person from the perspective of Hattie Inez Brooks. This young homesteader, who had lost both her parents by the time she was five, was shuttled from family member to family member until finally, at the age of sixteen, her Uncle Chester left her with a parcel of land in the barely settled region of Montana. Uncle Chester was her mother's brother, and a relative Hattie had no memory of, but he thought of her often and bequeathed his 320 acres of land, a horse named Plug and a cow named Violet to her, and all she had to do was meet the basic requirements between January and November. Hattie would jump on this opportunity to finally feel like she belonged somewhere, and the remainder of the story is her firsthand account of the challenges she...