critical review of the book woman of troublesome creek

Months after reading The Book Woman's Daughter, like The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, what sticks are the characters. Both women also have an insatiable appetite for 'book-learning' and prove that books are transformative.

Both women carry a genetic trait that causes the blood disorder methemoglobinemia, which tints the skin blue. Readers will remember that Cussy built her reputation among hill-folk as a 'bookwoman' who served as part of the Packhorse Librarian Project and provided valuable access to books for her people. The novel is set in the early fifties and told through the eyes of Honey Lovett, the child Cussy Mary Lovett adopted in the first novel. Her literary identity provides Honey with a freedom she struggles to find in her everyday life. A job and money-and the books-meant I could at least survive, and do it on my own''. ''I was grateful…, but even more appreciative for the librarian work. I was relieved there might be a chance of getting it without marrying,'' says our protagonist. The narrator's infectious love of books, the expansion of literacy, the empowerment of women, and the desire for equality, freedom and justice are the emergent themes. In The Book Woman's Daughter, Richardson balances these juxtaposed ideals by challenging stereotypes, utilizing strong female characters, and forging unlikely friendships. 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.

Critical review of the book woman of troublesome creek