The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson ~ Book Review

In the sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Honey Lovett, the daughter of Cussy Mary, the famed blue skinned pack horse librarian of Troublesome Creek, has lived her life in hiding with her mother and father.  Because her father was white and her mother blue skinned, their marriage was considered against the law.  But when the law catches up with them and her mom and dad are imprisoned for miscegenation, Honey flees to avoid being sent to children's labor camp.  Fleeing back to where her mother grew up, Honey gets a library pack horse job herself and delivers books deep into the Appalachian mountains to the poorest of poor.  Hoping to prove that she can survive on her own at 16 and look out for herself, she is planning on applying to become emancipated from her beloved family in order to avoid child services and the labor camp.  On arriving, Honey is befriended by a young woman who is the first woman to work in the fire towers in the area.  But being friends can also mean danger as there are those who resent a woman taking that job from the men of the area.  Honey will have to be strong in her determination to make it work.

I enjoyed this continuation of the story.  Honey also has the blue skinned gene from her mother though it is not as obvious as it was with Mary.  She can hide it quite well.   Even though the library pack horse program has been running for awhile now, Honey still finds resistance to the program.  She faces challenge after challenge both in delivering the books that she knows will bring freedom and learning to the poor of the area, but also in her daily survival.  Her friendship with Pearl was endearing as they supported one another.  A few more layers of  different kinds of prejudices that women of the time faced were added in Pearl's character with her fire tower look out job and that of Bonnie who had to take a mining job for her family to survive after her husband died were very interesting.  Loved the exploration of what these courageous women all faced in their time.  

Rated this book 9/10

Reading Goal Met:  Reading off my own shelves