January Library Book Club Selection - This Tender Land
Moving over to this platform, I’m going to share the two posts I’ve already shared on my blog. I moderate the book club that meets at my local library. The library promotes the book club but has no hand in the running book club. I’ve made a few changes since taking over, but one of the things I like is how we pick books for the year. In October, I open up the window to suggestions. At the November meeting, I had our lists of suggestions, and then we start voting. At the December meeting, I had out the list for the next year.
Books stay on the suggestion list for a few years, and like the Baseball Hall of Fame ballots, after a certain amount of time with no votes, they come off the list. Once everyone has voted, I take the top 12 books. If the vote count produces a list with more than 12 titles, I include my vote to round out the list. To choose the order for the books, I take the year the book was published and divide it by the number of pages.
You can find 2023’s Book List here.
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Summary: In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota's Gilead River, the Lincoln Indian Training School is a pitiless place where Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O’Banion, a lively orphan boy whose exploits constantly earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Odie and his brother, Albert, are the only white faces among the hundreds of Native American children at the school.
After committing a terrible crime, Odie and Albert are forced to flee for their lives along with their best friend, Mose, a mute young man of Sioux heritage. Out of pity, they also take with them a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy. Together, they steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi in search for a place to call home.
Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphan vagabonds journey into the unknown, crossing 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, bighearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.
Little Thoughts:
This book was okay. I liked the writing, and the story itself was enjoyable, but it just didn't hold my attention. Knowing that the book was inspired by The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Odyssey did help me to keep picking up to see if I could find more things that reminded me of both stories.
What I’m currently reading:
Spare by Prince Harry - listening to the audiobook while walking, so this is gonna take me awhile
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor - This is a book for the recommendation challenge and was suggested by Meredith
Into the War by Italo Calvino with Martin McLaughlin (Translator) - this one might be used for the library’s challenge, but I’m not sure yet. I read one of his books as an undergrad and have always wanted to read more of his stuff.