This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

My dear friend Mary recommended this book to me and if you have met her or ever get to read some of her work you know that she has the gift of storytelling. She doesn’t see the world like so many of us do. She see’s a trampoline and instead it’s a school for kids with superpowers or she sees different rooms in a house and they’re a dog hotel. Nothing is as what they seem. You just have to look past what your mind says and create a story from everything around you. She’s an incredible author who one day will be bringing that world of storytelling to kids minds just as she did to mine all those years ago. Just like Odie did for the Vagabonds that summer in 1932.

Odie O’Banion is a going on thirteen year old boy who is currently a student at The Lincoln Indian Training School on the Minnesota/Dakota boarder. Odie and his brother, Albert, are orphans and the only white faces among hundreds of Native American children who have been separated from their families. As one of the students known for causing trouble, he finds himself in a pickle after he has committed and unforgivable act and must flee the school. Odie and Albert escape along with their best friend, Mose, and a little girl named Emmy who has seen much loss at her young age. They become known as The Vagabonds. They set off in their canoe, trying to find their new home, and over the course of a summer come across some unforgettable paths that change the course of who they will become. Meeting many people of all different walks of life who are all just lost souls as well.

I want to start off by saying this book was so beautifully written. Krueger has such a way with words that it shows why so many people love and rave about this book. His creation of these characters and throwing them in situations that, though may seem far fetched when you think of it separated, makes total sense when the pieces all come together. It often had you thinking what you would have done if you were placed in any of these situations the Vagabonds faced that one summer. For one should “Open yourself to every possibility, for there is nothing your heart can imagine that is not so” (This Tender Land 3).

Until Next Time, The Library Abroad