Book Review: THIS TENDER LAND by William Kent Krueger

Title: THIS TENDER LAND

Author:  William Kent Krueger
Read: July 2020

Expected publication: 1 August 2020

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2

Book Description:

1932, Minnesota—the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an en­thralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.

What attracted me to this book:

THIS TENDER LAND is the type of story I would have loved to listen to as a child. Set in the 1930’s, the era of the Great Depression, the book focuses on the adventures of four orphans who are on the run from an evil headmistress, using a canoe on a tributary of the mighty Mississippi river to evade the authorities. It evoked memories of my Dad reading us stories of the adventures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer as we listened, wide-eyed and spellbound, with a foreign wonderland of wild river country and colourful characters taking shape in our minds.

My musings:

Sometimes you know within a few pages that you are going to love a book. As soon as I met Odie O’Banion, the narrator of the story, as he recalls memories of his 12-year old self growing up in Lincoln School for Native American children with his brother Albert and best friend Mose, I knew I was in for a real treat. My heart broke for Odie and his schoolmates as the full horror of life at this institution was revealed, and I cheered for them as they made their getaway. From here on, a wonderful adventure unfolded, brimming with a rich cast of interesting and well-rounded characters that made the story roll out like a movie in my mind. My inner child was full of awe for the four adventurers, whilst my maternal side just wanted to grab them, hug them and give them a good hot meal and a warm bed to sleep in.

The author brings the era of the Great Depression to life, with all its hardships but also the generosity and camaraderie that helped people survive. With the wonderfully atmospheric setting of the (fictional) Gilead River and the mighty Mississippi, the stage was set and I was transported into another world I would only emerge from reluctantly, hours later, still dazed from the different world I had just experienced.

Summary:

THIS TENDER LAND really was the best type of book, one that took me out of my own reality and made me live another life, during another time, as seen through Odie’s eyes. I just loved those four “vagabonds”! I laughed, I cried, I raged and cheered – all the emotions! It’s a book that will appeal to a wide audience, from teenagers to the old – all you need is a sense of adventure and a bit of compassion for the wonderful people you will encounter on the journey. I didn’t want the story to end, and the characters are still very much alive in my mind. This is perhaps why I would have preferred a more open ending than the older Odie looking back at his childhood and the years that followed, but it’s still one that will go onto my favourites list this year. I really loved the author’s writing style and can’t wait to read my way through his other books.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Australia for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.