Recounts the difficulties and joys the Kilgore family and their neighbors experienced in a close-knit rural community during the Great Depression

As the Great Depression tightened its grip on the world, there were six Henderson’s living in a cramped farmhouse in Brookwood, Alabama. Crops couldn’t grow well, food was scarce, shoes were in short supply, and the few clothes they had were all hand-me-downs. The family struggled to make ends meet, cobbling together odd jobs and working the land by hand.

Despite all this, Aileen Kilgore Henderson, thought life was full of hope. She longed to hold onto it and scribbled down daily events on whatever odds and ends of paper she could find. She also drew pictures to illustrate their lives in a big book with blank pages that her Daddy got for her. When the Wolf Camped at Our Door creates a vivid portrait of what life was like for many living in the rural South during the Depression and provides context for their everyday lives. The book begins when young Aileen is ten years old and follows her into her teenage years over the course of twenty-seven episodic chapters. Drawing on her girlhood diaries and told through the charismatic voice of her younger self, Henderson’s nuanced storytelling sheds light on the common struggle for sustenance during a time when people were at their most vulnerable.

Against the backdrop of a world where hard work and harsh conditions like hunger, privation, sickness, and early death were everyday realities, Henderson’s stories are nevertheless tinged with young Aileen’s lively sense of humor and optimistic faith in people and the promise of life despite trying circumstances. We follow her rambles in the woods, her visits with friends, a trip to a fortune teller, and search for the Howton Horror, a mysterious monster rumored to live deep in the Alabama backwoods.