Knowin' Sugar

by Shelly Chatterelli

In the lush landscape of an Appalachian season, Sugar's days are rich with the simple pleasures of playing hide and seek and catching crawdads. But the mystical whispers of truths, warnings of danger, and calls to action herald the stirrings of a gift passed down through generations. An awakening sensitivity that will upend her life. As Sugar's knowin's become impossible to hide, her mother grows distant. Unwilling to silence the truest part of herself to keep the love of her mother, Sugar's forced to reckon with their family's past and present to understand how to live with her gift. Set in the 1940s, Knowin' Sugar is an ode to the intertwined natural and human worlds of rural Appalachia. Sugar's poignant coming of age story reminds us of what it means to belong to a place and a people, and the wavering line between destiny and choice.