This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger is more than a story of four orphan children running from an abusive children's home, it is about the rivers that run into the great Mississippi and the river bank inhabitants trying to eke out a living during the Depression.
Odie O'Banion and his brother Albert are placed in the Lincoln Indian Training School when they become orphans - the only white boys in a school set up to completely to eviscerate the Native American way of life, language and heritage. Many such government "schools" were set up around the country, taking young children from their homes and families, supposedly to assimilate them into society. When Odie is trying to protect himself, an accident occurs forcing Odie and Albert to flee. They take with them a young girl whose mother has recently died and an Indian boy and travel in a canoe along the river in the quest to find a kindly aunt who lives in St. Louis. Along the way they encounter the kindness from some and mean spirit of others, but each is struggling with something they have lost.
This is a powerful story and no matter the struggles we are having today, it is nothing compared to the utter desolation and without hope those who struggled through the Depression felt. The Native Americans had the added despair of their children plucked from their homes and placed into government Indian Training Schools supposedly to learn how to live in America. I find it so sad that people don't pool their resources and learn from each other, rather than decide that everyone should be of like mind and culture. Everyone has a different and interesting story if we bother to listen.
