From the mountains of North Carolina

Twelve-year-old Dovey is the likable, plain-spoken narrator in Dovey Coe by Frances O'Roark Dowell. This fast-paced story takes place in the 1920s in small and poor Indian Creek, North Carolina. Dovey's beautiful older sister Caroline dreams of going away to a teacher's college, but that idea doesn't sit well with Parnell Caraway, son of the richest man in town. Parnell want to marry Caroline, but Dovey lets us know he's "the meanest, vainest, greediest man who ever lived. Seventeen years old and rotten to the core." After being publicly rejected by Caroline, Parnell gets revenge by locking up one of the dogs of Amos, Dovey and Caroline's brother who is deaf. When Dovey goes to retrieve the dog, things go wrong - Dovey gets knocked out, Parnell has been killed, and Dovey is falsely accused of his murder. The mountain dialect used in this book is authentic (although some readers may struggle with it a bit), the setting is described in a wonderful way, and ending is definitely a satisfying one.