"That Little Girl has a Mind of her Own" is a memoir about the adventures of a spirited young lass, just three generations from the Emerald Isle, growing up in a small village in Upstate New York, in the 1950's. The book is a series of vignettes that share with the reader the trials and tribulations, the heartbreak and disappointments, and the triumphs of a young, precocious child as she confronts life's challenges. The story meanders through three generations of culture and customs, food and family, and many a bump along the way.

"That Little Girl has a Mind of her Own" tells the tale of an Irish immigrant family, the tragedies that they endured, and their good fortune. The good fortune of being part of the American dream of prosperity, religious tolerance and the life that would never have been possible in their homeland.The story travels on a timeline beginning in the early 1900's and follows the family from the coal mines of Pennsylvania, to Elmira, New York, and finally to the tiny village of Watkins Glen, New York. The story reminisces about the long days of summer, the scrumptious dinners that were served up with generous spoonfuls of love and gravy, holidays and happy times, and loss so painful and so unfair.

Hopefully, this book will enlighten the young among us of how life use to be. The generations who remember nothing about gathering around a giant box of a radio after dinner, or running after the ice truck on a hot summer day, or milk being delivered by a wagon drawn by a real live horse, or hours spent rocking in your grandmother's lap on her front porch. And for those readers who do have memories of things past, I am hoping that this book will bring back those memories of their childhood and the way things used to be.

M H King is a retired public school teacher who spent her days in the classroom urging her young students to put pencil to paper and tell their stories. After retiring and determined to disprove the old adage"Those who can...do, those who can't... teach", she decided that it was her time to put pencil to paper and write a memoir about growing up at a different time. Ms. King now lives in Tallahassee, Florida with her husband, but she grew up in the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York, and still enjoys spending time there at her cottage on Seneca Lake.