Atomic Farmgirl: Growing Up Right in the Wrong Place

Atomic Farmgirl is a wise, irreverent, deeply personal story of growing up right in the wrong place. The granddaughter of German Lutheran homesteaders, Teri Hein was raised in the 1950s and 1960s in rural eastern Washington. This starkly elegant landscape serves as the poignant backdrop to her story, for one hundred miles to the south of this idyllic, all-American setting lay the toxins -- both mental and physical -- of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. From horseback riding to haying, Flag Day parades to Cold War duck-and-cover drills, Atomic Farmgirl chronicles a peculiar coming of age for a young girl and her community of hardworking, patriotic folk, whose way of life -- and livelihood -- are gradually threatened by the poisons of progress.
Combining a profoundly tender story of youth with politics and an unmistakable sense of place, Teri Hein has written a memoir that is part Terry Tempest Williams, part Erin Brockovich, part Garrison Keillor. In the end, she offers a rich and ribald journey into the universal mysteries of childhood, love, community, and home, a journey that confirms humankind's infinite capacity for hope.

Author: Teri Hein
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 04/18/2003
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.77lbs
Size: 8.51h x 5.54w x 0.68d
ISBN: 9780618302413

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 7.5
Point Value: 14
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 71651 / Atomic Farmgirl: The Betrayal of Chief Qualchan, the Appaloosa, and Me

About the Author
Hein, Teri: - Teri Hein grew up on a wheat farm in eastern Washington, where her great-grandparents originally homesteaded. In the years since she left home for college, she has led an adventurous life -- teaching abroad, rafting the Grand Canyon, traveling to northweatern Pakistan to learn firsthand about the plight of Afgani women refugees, doing research in the Amazon Jungle, and hiking above the Arctic Circle. She has received awards for her teaching, as well as a Fulbright Scholarship. She was a founding member and teacher of The Hutch School, an innovative program for children who are undergoing cancer treatment at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She is also the Founding Executive Director of 826 Seattle which was awarded the National Youth Arts and Humanities award.