Although the first three Regional books were historical novels, with "Judy's Journey" (1947) Lenski turned her attention to the contemporary issue of migrant labor. Many of the subsequent Regional books would also have contemporary settings. After "Judy's Journey"—which, like its predecessors, was set in areas that Lenski had visited during her seasonal travels—Lenski also broadened the geographic scope of her research and set regional stories throughout the country. As the series grew in popularity, its fans wrote to her and invited her to visit their communities. Some of the books directly resulted from this correspondence; for example, in 1947 Lenski traveled to Mississippi County, Arkansas, after a class in the rural community of Yarbro heard her read aloud on the radio and invited her to visit. "Cotton in My Sack" (1949), a story about a young girl in a sharecropping family, was inspired by her stay in northeast Arkansas.