Hardcover, 450 pages
English language
Published Nov. 15, 2019 by Atria Books.
Homer meets Huck Finn. I appreciate the descriptions of the depression and how it reflects 2021
Fantastic coming-of-age story in a historical setting. At first I wasn't sure I'd like it because I usually prefer books with female protagonists. This book featured mostly boys but the first few pages drew me in, and at that point it became unimportant whether the main character was male or female, because he was simply a beautifully-drawn human being.
To sum up, I'd say it's a little bit of a Huck Finn story around the time of the Great Depression in the US (1920s-30s) but with a darker angle. This angle is timely given the 2021 news stories about abuse of indigenous children in group homes and church-run schools in the US and Canada.
The main characters are two teenage boys who are White orphans in such a home (a fictional one). When a young girl on a neighboring farm gets pulled into the story through a tragedy, things take …
Fantastic coming-of-age story in a historical setting. At first I wasn't sure I'd like it because I usually prefer books with female protagonists. This book featured mostly boys but the first few pages drew me in, and at that point it became unimportant whether the main character was male or female, because he was simply a beautifully-drawn human being.
To sum up, I'd say it's a little bit of a Huck Finn story around the time of the Great Depression in the US (1920s-30s) but with a darker angle. This angle is timely given the 2021 news stories about abuse of indigenous children in group homes and church-run schools in the US and Canada.
The main characters are two teenage boys who are White orphans in such a home (a fictional one). When a young girl on a neighboring farm gets pulled into the story through a tragedy, things take off. The story and plot twists kept me racing over to my reading chair each day as soon as I finished work.
Despite the unhappy-sounding initial setting, this book is uplifting, exciting, and hopeful right from the start. The author's historical knowledge and world building are fantastic. Every time I picked up the book, I time-traveled back 100 years and I was rafting on the Mississippi and hopping train cars
