Mathis, Ayana.

The twelve tribes of Hattie / 12 tribes of Hattie Ayana Mathis. - Toronto : HarperCollins, c2012. - 243 p. ; 24 cm.

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother's monumental courage and the journey of a nation.

ISBN: 9781443423465 1443423467

LCCN: 2012010779

Subjects--Topical Terms:
African American women--Fiction.
African American families--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Fiction.
African Americans--Migrations--History--20th century--Fiction.
Mother and child--Fiction.

Index Terms--Genre/Form:
Historical fiction--2013.
Domestic fiction--2013.

Dewey Class. No.: 813/.6