Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas

Bette Evensky Greene was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Her family lived in Parkin (Cross County), thirty-five miles from Memphis. The Evenskys were the only Jewish family in Parkin; they attended synagogue in Memphis. Greene, a successful novelist, used Arkansas as the setting for many of her novels. Her most noted novel, Summer of My German Soldier, is read widely and was made into a television movie. Set in a small Arkansas town during World War II, it tells the story of a lonely Jewish girl who aids a German prisoner after he escapes from a stateside prisoner-of-war camp. The novel is partly autobiographical and is historically and psychologically realistic.