What a powerful read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (#875) is! Kim Michele Richardson has highlighted a little-known program about the Packhorse Librarians who operated in the rural areas of Kentucky at the height of the Depression as part of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration from 1935 to 1943. Most of these women provided reading materials to their patrons isolated in their remote hollers and coves in the Appalachian backwoods. It was grueling, sometimes dangerous, but important work.
Ms. Richardson brings this world to life and places the reader smack in the midst of it. Her heroine, Cussy Mary Carter, is the daughter of a miner. She takes the job as a Pack Horse librarian to earn a little extra income. It's one of the only options available to her as a "Blue". She and her father both suffer from a rare genetic disorder which makes their skin blue. In Troublesome Creek, Negroes are
"Coloreds", but so are the Carters. In many peoples' eyes, they are even more discriminated against because of the blueness. On her library route, "Book Woman's" color doesn't seem to matter so much to her patrons hungry for news and stories about the outside world. We meet them and learn their stories along with Cussy Mary - their joys and all too often, their sorrows.
It's a marvel how Ms. Richardson can pack so much information into this work of historical fiction without making it didactic or dull. It's that rare book that lives up to its cover blurb from Sara Gruen: "An unputdownable work that holds real cultural significance." Amen to that! Highly recommended!
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