YA Coming of Age novel. Girl named Tess is about 15-16. Set in the Ozarks, Arkansas or Missouri. Read in early 1990s.

[Tammy]

YA novel about a girl named Tess in the Arkansas or possibly Missouri Ozarks. She is poor and wants an education. She is in the woods one day and meets a young archeologist who befriends her. He teaches her some about archeology. She has red hair? I remember the title being Tess/Tessa but unable to find.

[Kris]

Tammy, that's a good start but it's mandatory to include genre (e.g., YA coming-of-age, adventure, romance) and plot details in your topic header. We have thousands of YA requests. Please read the Group Rules.

We will close threads that don't adhere to this requirement in this very large group. Click the small "edit" link after the header to update it. This only works on the full Desktop website - not the Mobile website or app. (On the Mobile website, there's a "Desktop version" link at the bottom of the page.)

- How old is Tess?
- Around what year did you read this book? A range of years is fine. This will help us narrow down the search.

[Rainbowheart]

Tessa

[Kris]

Thanks for the updating the topic header. This will help moderators and searchers.

[Paige]

Bump.

[Andria]

Paige, Rainbowheart's suggestion above (Tessa by Barbara Steiner) seems like a good fit, have you definitely ruled it out?

[Paige]

I thought so too. Tammy is the original poster.

[Andria]

Oh, whoops. I got so excited seeing such a good match I wasn’t paying attention to who the OP was!