I Stole a Bone to Survive and Built My Own Empir

Everyone in Black Creek agreed on one thing: June was the unwanted kid. Her father vanished, her mother Brenda remarried and left her behind the day her grandmother was buried, and at thirteen June was alone in a dim shack with $214.37 and a vegetable patch. She lied to her classmates, built her own fires, and hauled her own water, determined that education was the only road out of the mountains.

But high school in the county seat costs money, and the $214.37 will not last the year. Watching her neighbor Bella leave for a construction site—and knowing every girl who goes comes back to marry—June sets her sights on the one person who could help: her mother, who showers her little brother Caleb with toys. If June becomes the top student in the whole school, will Brenda throw a little tuition money her way?

On New Year's Eve, hungry and alone, June snatches a bone from a stray dog in the alley—and Marge Dawson, the mayor's wife, sees everything.