First Hattie's father and mother die, and then she loses her adored little brother. So she is shipped off to an exclusive boarding school with her cousin, Sophie. Sophie has wealth, beauty, friends, and most of all, confidence--things Hattie has never had. Hattie is terrified. What if the other girls don't accept her? What if fickle Sophie turns on her?

Then like a whirlwind, Fannie Macintosh shows up at Miss Bulkey's Seminary for Young Ladies. She's from the Wild West and does everything wrong--she wears the wrong clothes, sys the wrong things, and laughs at he wrong jokes. But there's something about Fannie that Hattie likes--something genuine and fresh. Maybe even something admirable.

Based on the journal kept by Sally Warner's great-grandmother, Finding Hattie is a warm and moving story about a lonely, intelligent girl who loses her way and finds it again.