About the Book

Set in Depression-era East Tennessee, Field of Stones follows thirteen-year-old Lettie as she learns to name—and challenge—the forces shaping her world. Mine closures, moonshining, and the brutal displacement of the Cherokee leave scars on the land and its people. Guided by the mountain’s spirit and the legacy of the Cherokee who once walked there, Lettie comes to believe in social and economic justice: that every family deserves safety, work with dignity, and a future for their children. After losing those she loves to violence born of poverty and power, she devotes her life to improving life in the hills—listening to miners’ families, recording Indigenous history, and welcoming change when the TVA arrives as a transformative post-Depression economic force.