Terry Piper

At the end of Ozark Girl, Charlene Ridley had finished eighth grade and finished with life in the Ozarks, or so it seemed. We meet her again in Getting Smart, following her along the bumpy roads of life in the Ozark hills. We share with her those experiences--happy, confusing, painful--that continue to shape her life. We see her figuring out the new rules--her mother's and those unwritten rules of high school life. Bobby Ray is back, as are Leitha, Jeannie, Fig, Jerry, and most of the Boogey Fla... more info>>

Charlene Ridley didn't have a lot going for her. Growing up in the Ozark hills of southwestern Missouri during the 1950s, she owned one pair of shoes that had to last the school year, whether her feet grew or not, and she wore dresses her mother made from feed sacks that she bought from the local feed store. Tall and thin when the fashion was short and curvy, Charlene knew she was no beauty, and if she had forgotten, she had her alcoholic father to remind her, as he did at every opportunity. She... more info>>

by Terry Piper Ozark Series, vol. 3 Readers first met Charlene Ridley and the colorful cast of characters, who were part of her life, as she was about to start school in Boogey Flats, Missouri. OZARK GIRL told the story of a young girl growing up in poverty with an alcoholic father and learning to cope, not always successfully, with middle-school bullies. In GETTING SMART, Charlene was a teenager who had learned to cope with bullies and had begun to carve a place for herself in the social land... more info>>