Digital content provided by hoopla. Read by Katie Schorr.
Summary:
In 1936, tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky, blue-skinned nineteen-year-old Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry, has just snuffed out her last courting candle, her last chance for "respectability" and a marriage bed. The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky. Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government's new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give those who have nothing a bookly respite. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a story of hope and heartbreak, raw courage and strength splintered with poverty and oppression, and one woman's chances beyond the darkly hollows. Inspired by the true and historical blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek showcases an atmospheric, fascinating, and important footnote of Kentucky history that should be prized and preserved.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.