Someone in my book club suggested the club read this so it was our read for May 2017. The author is even going to come to book club to talk about the book which should be interesting. That's the great thing about belonging to a book club; you pick up books you would probably never read otherwise. I certainly had not heard of this book or even this author although he lives in my city.

The time is the 1950s, the setting is a rural valley in Manitoba and the people in the stories are farmers. Other than the location of the valley, which is the Pembina Valley in southern Manitoba, this book could be my own story. Actually, that's not true because the people in the valley are all Mennonites which is a far more restrictive religion than the United Church in which I grew up. That religion colours the life of Stephen and Trudy Zacharias as they grow up. Work is never done on Sundays and married couples use Sunday afternoons for their "maddach schlope", an afternoon nap which may perhaps involve using their bed for more than napping. The children, unsupervised, often get up to mischief on Sunday afternoons (and other days of the week). When Stephen goes across the US border to pick potatoes he doesn't work on Sundays but his religion would probably frown on his activity that day. He hears black gospel music coming from the supervisor's room and he is drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Back home he teaches one of the songs to his best friend and they try to teach it to their Sunday School class, causing the preacher to punish them by strapping. Physical punishment was often meted out by parents and schoolteachers and others in authority. One school teacher seemed to get a sadistic pleasure out of bringing a wooden ruler down on the hands of transgressors. But despite the strictness and the hard work there are moments of beauty and places of grace for the inhabitants of the valley. David Elias has done a remarkable job of showing these as well as the harsher realities. ( )