Medicine River by Mary Annette Pember

 

First Line: My mother's migraines hold me prisoner for much of my childhood.

Recently, I have immersed myself in the history of Indian boarding schools fictionally, historically, and physically. I often pass the site of the Phoenix Indian School, and my visit to the internationally acclaimed Heard Museum included much time spent in the excellent (and sobering) exhibit Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories. That time brought to life many things I've read, including Mary Annette Pember's Medicine River. 

Pember's exhaustive research began as a way to understand her mother's behavior as well as her grandmother's. Both women were sent to Indian boarding schools, and Mary's mother in particular was indelibly scarred from her experience.

Indian boarding schools were the U.S. government's attempt to assimilate all Native Americans-- to make them think and behave like whites. The boarding schools were rife with disease, and those in charge sent sick children back to the reservation to infect and kill many others. To add insult to injury, these children were forced into schools that Native Americans were forced to pay for. They literally funded their own abuse.

Pember shines light on so many topics. Legislation affecting Native Americans over the years. Famous Native Americans who were products of those boarding schools. Insights into her own Ojibwe culture. The homegrown historians (mostly women, both Indian and white) who are documenting and preserving America's Indian boarding school history. This book is a gold mine of illuminating facts that also helped the author shed light on her personal history.

One of the things I found most interesting was the study of epigenetics-- that humans can pass along more than DNA in our genes, that genes can also carry memories of trauma experienced by our ancestors. It's an interesting avenue of thought.

Medicine River is an important addition to Native American history. It is a history that we should all know more about.

Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools 

by Mary Annette Pember

eISBN: 9780553387322

Pantheon Books © 2025

eBook, 304 pages

Non-Fiction

Rating: B+

Source: Net Galley

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

 

First Line: In the beginning, after he labored over the heavens and the earth, the light and the dark, the land and sea and all living things that dwell within, after he created man and woman and before he rested, I believe God gave us one final gift.

 

On the banks of the Gilead River in Minnesota, Lincoln School is home to hundreds of Native American boys and girls who have been separated from their families. It is also home to two orphaned white boys, Odie and Albert. It's 1932. The country is deep in the Depression, and times are hard. They are made even harder by Lincoln School's cruel superintendent, Mrs. Brickman, whom all the students call the Black Witch because of her raven hair and dark eyes. Odie and Albert often find themselves in trouble and being punished by the superintendent, but they've made friends with a mute Native American boy called Mose and Cora Frost, a widowed teacher who's raising her little daughter, Emmy, by herself.

 

When tragedy strikes down Mrs. Frost, Odie and Albert are faced with a momentous decision. The two boys, along with Mose, rescue Emmy and escape in a canoe down the Gilead, leaving a dead body in their wake. All Odie and Albert want to do is make their way to St. Louis to an aunt who lives there. All they want is a place they can call home.  

 

~

 

This Tender Land is so much more than an homage to Huckleberry Finn. William Kent Krueger is so immensely talented at creating living, breathing characters and setting them in a landscape that you can see and hear and touch.

 

Mose's Indian name means "broken to pieces," and so many things are broken to pieces in this marvelous book, first and foremost the lives of the characters. It's how hard they try to put those pieces back together that warms your heart.

 

More and more, I'm coming across books that are set during the Depression. It's such an incredible time period, and Krueger brings it to life. Rootless people with no money, no hope, and no homes. One cataclysm after another that they must endure. No wonder thirteen-year-old Odie believes God is a tornado. Another of the strong elements in This Tender Land is showing what so many children were forced to endure in Indian boarding schools throughout the United States and Canada.

 

With a rock-solid foundation of a setting, I couldn't help but be swept along with those four children in their canoe as they paddled down one river after another. On the run, hungry, scared, encountering people from all walks of life, and being placed in all sorts of situations. Krueger is superb when it comes to depicting the strength of the human spirit and the beauty of the land. If you want to be fully immersed in the next book you read, pick up a copy of This Tender Land.    

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Narrated by Scott Brick.

ASIN: B07S85YLDY

Recorded Books © 2019

Audiobook. 14  hours and 19 minutes.

 

Historical Fiction, Standalone

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Audible.