Winter’s Bone

From School Library Journal: "In the poverty-stricken hills of the Ozarks, Rees Dolly, 17, struggles daily to care for her two brothers and an ill mother. When she learns that her absent father, has put up the family home as bond, she embarks on a dangerous search to find him and bring him home for an upcoming court date. Rees is by turns tough and tender. Like Mattie Ross in Charles Portis's True Grit, Rees beats the odds with spunk and courage. A compelling testament to how people survive in the worst of circumstances."