These livelihoods are filled with family values, hardscrabble survival, loyal friendships, and desire for education, yet rife with the racism, miscegenation laws, and misogyny that plague the systems of patriarchy and white supremacy. In this fictionalized but true Appalachian tale, many struggle for literacy and yearn for news of the outside world, while others fearfully hang on to the only lives they've known. The lack of infrastructure in difficult terrain has kept the descendants of early settlers regionally isolated, causing Appalachia to be one of the last places in America to obtain modern living standards. One hundred years after the first large public library was erected in Boston, while library buildings were popping up all over the country, in 1952 Appalachia, books were still carried on horseback across narrow footpaths into hollers, up hillsides, and along high ridges. Yet, The Book Woman's Daughter stands alone as a simple, sweet story layered with the dark, complicated issues which still haunt Appalachia today. For readers who loved Kim Michelle Richardson's The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, this sequel offers another visit to the hills of Eastern Kentucky, only one generation after the WPA implemented the Packhorse Librarian Project.
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