Stories of an Appalachian Girl

“Bright-Eyed and Barefoot” is a humorous and touching memoir of growing up with little money and even less adult supervision. These stories show the independence, creativity, and resilience of an Appalachian girl, and her siblings and friends, who were charged with looking out for her. At a time when American working parents, living both in small towns and down country roads, were transfixed by world events and economics, their children—like Christy—were busy decorating bicycle banana seats and jumping off ropes into swimming holes. “Bright-Eyed and Barefoot” shares funny and tender memories of hiding in cattle pens, spinning 45s, watching car races, riding horses, and climbing trees, as well as other tales of growing up in the 1970s and 1980s between the Ohio River and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Each story, organized by theme, shares insight into the culture of people at a place and time that can be revisited only through the memories of those who lived it.