DNF. It’s too depressing. I read the plot summary after deciding not to finish, and it seems to stay depressing. Decent writing, interesting idea, but so much could have been done better here. ( )

Emotionally wiped out after finishing this book. Krueger does such a good job with character development making me develop emotional attachments to them. They go through a lot so it's a tough ride. ( )

preachy, melodramatic, sanctimonious ( )

Set in the already desperate times of the Great Depression, this beautifully written work of historical fiction follows the adventures and sometimes heartbreaking travails of four orphans who escape from a horrible Minnesota boarding school, Lincoln Indian Training School, where the students are mistreated, poorly fed, and abused in a number of ways by the unsavory adults in charge. Their vehicle of escape on the Gilead River in Minnesota is a canoe that is salvaged from the farm of the youngest escapee, five-year-old Emmy, that was destroyed in a tornado that also claimed the life of Emmy’s mother. They hope to paddle to the Mississippi River and then all the way to St. Louis where the narrator Odie (short for Odysseus) and his older brother, Albert, believe they have an aunt who they hope will take them in. Joining them on their journey is Mose, a Sioux whose tongue was cut out by his mother’s murderers, and who meets other Sioux along the way who enlighten him about the genocide of their people. The story is at times heartbreaking, but it is filled with examples of courage, kindness, and stubborn determination that serve as counterweights to the meanness and violence of some of the characters they encounter. ( )

Sprawling, beautiful, and spiritual - This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger is a profound American Odyssey about four wayward youths trying to survive all on their own. In fact, it’s like the Odyssey— the story is literally about four orphaned children on their journey to find home. This book also resembles Huck Finn by Mark Twain in its episodic plots and river journey, Charles Dickens in its societal critique and its prose is similar to the work of Marilynne Robinson. That's excellent company!

So what's the story? After years of such mistreatment, Vincent DiMarco - an evil headmaster at the Lincoln Indian Training School, formerly a military outpost called Fort Sibley meets a sudden demise at the hands of one of the children. Odie and Albert (the only two white boys in the school) along with a speechless Sioux Indian boy named Mose Washington, and six-year old Emmy Frost are forced to go on the run pursued by the police.

Thus their journey begins—harsh, perilous, frightening. They are confronted along the way by a dissimilitude of good and evil.

The novel is told in a sort of recollection by Odie, and is many ways focused upon him and his journey to find out where he comes from (while escaping where he's been). Odie is a person who longs for connection - with family and with God, the creator but has a hard time trusting anyone. And it interesting that Odie's spiritual journey takes him from, "God is a Tornado,"(a God who sets about to destroy and complicate lives) to God is a river whose flow we are all a part of.


The ending of this story is about the nature of forgiveness, and the need for family. This novel also gives you some insight about Depression era 1932 and life in the Midwest.

It's beautiful work of fiction. Highly recommended.
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