Betty Perkins White is a great-grandmother and is the fifth generation from Reeds Spring, Missouri. She writes from personal experience and combines her family's history with extensive knowledge and research about the area. In Growing Up Hillbilly, she brings the early 1900s to life through a historical novel inspired by her grandparents and the people who lived in the Ozarks.

Growing Up Hillbilly is a historical novel set near Branson, Missouri, in the Ozark Mountains. The story takes place less than ten miles from where the television series The Shepherd of the Hills was written and begins during the same year the famous novel was published.

Drawing from real history and family heritage, the book celebrates the strength, resilience, friendships, and traditions of the people who called these hills home. Through authentic storytelling and rich historical detail, the novel offers readers an engaging glimpse into early 20th-century Ozark life while preserving the ancestry and culture of the Reeds Spring community.