Hattie Mae Begins Again

She knows hard work: milking cows, plucking chickens, minding the garden. Her hands are made for manual labor, her feet for dirt—that is, according to Lisa and some of the girls at Miss Abigail’s School for Exceptional Young Ladies in Philadelphia. In their eyes, Hattie Mae will never break into upper society and is unworthy of becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Though Hattie Mae sticks out like a sore thumb and has more in common with the hundreds of Black folks pouring into the city looking for better opportunities during the Great Migration, she knows that she belongs. She just has to prove it to the rest of the girls—and maybe even to herself. A moving coming-of-age story about finding the courage to be yourself, chasing your dreams, and lending a hand to others along the way.