The Lincoln School, an orphanage with horrible caregivers who beat the children and subjected them to even worse daily working conditions, is where we meet Odie, Albert, Mose, and then Emmy.

The three friends had to get away, and they had their chance one night.

We follow them as they escape with Emmy who didn't originally live at the school and move farther and farther away from Lincoln School and the horrors they had endured.

Following the three friends and Emmy down the Mississippi river and meeting the folks along the River was mesmerizing.

The trip down the river also seemed dangerous but was amazing how the friends always had another friend/stranger helping out.

THIS TENDER LAND's lush writing had me not wanting to stop reading because I didn’t want to miss their adventures, and I didn't want the book to end.

Mr. Krueger's writing pulls you in with his descriptions, lovable characters, and story line.

What a marvelous, master story teller Mr. Krueger is. His book even incorporated stories told by the characters within the book.

Mr. Krueger’s magic is indeed evident in THIS TENDER LAND and is a book that needs to be read by every book club and everyone who loves becoming engrossed in the lives of the characters in a book and an era.

This book is an absorbing tale of love, loss, and endurance and will fill your heart with the warmth that comes with feeling needed, helpful, and wanted.

You just have to read this book to understand its beauty and excellence. 5/5

This book was given to me as an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley.

My favorite book of 2019!

How special it is to find one of those rare and beautiful books that etches a place in your heart. This Tender Land is certainly one of those books for me. I have a feeling it will be on the best seller list for quite a while. Thank you to the author, William Kent Krueger, for sharing your heart with this book.

The book starts with the narrator, Odie O’Bannion, looking back upon events from the great depression. He tells the reader to open themselves to every possibility, for there is nothing your heart can imagine that is not so. Then he promises a tale of killing, kidnapping, children pursued by demons (and a very persistent Black Witch), courage, cowardice, love, betrayal, and of course hope. And boy does he deliver a magical story!

The story is an odyssey of four orphaned children who escape a horrible existence at an Indian School in Minnesota and try to travel via canoe to try to find an aunt in St. Louis, Missouri. The year is 1932. Odie, along with his brother Albert(the only two white children at the Indian school) their best friend Mose, rescue a young girl, Emmy, and take off with some stolen cash and a gun. They know they will be chased by the law and accused of kidnapping Emmy. As they follow the twists and turns of the great rivers they paddle, the four learn more and more about themselves. There are many well wishers, who always say to them “God be with you”. There are also several evil people, who shake their belief system entirely.

Odie O’Bannon, who was only 12 years old, tries to understand God, who had taken away his last hope of happiness with a tornado that killed Emmy’s mother who was his favorite teacher. He felt like at every corner of the journey the Tornado God had its ultimate purpose to deny the boy a happy ending. But as the journey continues, he realizes he can’t pin down God. The most important truth he learns is that when he yields to the river and embraces the journey that he finds peace. The other 3 children are also able to come to peace with their purpose, and to find a place they could call home.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I give this 10 stars. I really loved this book. I would highly recommend it to book clubs and readers who enjoyed Before We Were Yours and Where The Crawdads Sing.

Starts a little slow and then you get drawn into the fantastic story. I couldn’t put it down and then I did not want it to end. My husband is reading it now and is also enthralled by story. A must read.

I really wanted to like this book. I tried it first in audio and then thinking it was the reader, picked up the book. Nope. It didn't work for me. The main characters are children that do not act like children, Their personalities are random. The folks they meet along their journey never rang true for me. I have read other books by this author and have enjoyed them. Sorry, not this one.

Loved it!

The writing style was amazing. The setting and stories were inlightening. and most of all an amazing story written by a brilliant story writer., This book has been enjoyed by both men and women.

Beautifully written story of 4 orphans trying to be a family as they travel to find "home". The writing places you in the settings and time period so you experience what the characters experience. Historically informative and emotionally hopeful.

Beautifully written... this book is all about taking risks and making it to the finish line. It’s a story about four children on an adventure to St. Louis in search of a home. They ran away from a abusive Indian school which has a link to Odies past. It’s amazing. You won’t stop. I love the fact that the Bible was mentioned throughout the book. William Kent is an impeccable author!

A modern day classic on the level with Dickens and Twain!

This Tender Land, William Kent Krueger, author, Scott Brick, narrator
Scott Brick is an extraordinary narrator, and William Kent Krueger is the extraordinary author of this book that begins by taking the reader back in time to the hardscrabble years of post WWI and the Depression era. It largely takes place during Odysseus O’Banion’s twelfth year, in 1932, but does continue decades later to tie up any loose ends and to explain the future for the characters as it relates to historic events and to their past. It follows the lives of four young children whom life seems to have abandoned, “the four vagabonds” as they make their escape from an abusive school environment where they suffer unfairly at the hands of cruel, unscrupulous adults.
Odie tells the story of himself, his brother Albert, Mose a mute teenager from the Sioux tribe, and a little girl, Emmaline Frost, the daughter of a kind teacher at the school. They are hoping to use a canoe they found, undamaged, on her property, after the tornado that took her mother’s life left Emmy an orphan. Mrs. Frost had hoped to adopt Odie, Albert and Mose, students at the school, before the tragedy struck, but now even her own daughter is an orphan in the hands of the awful Mr. and Mrs. Brightman, who run the school. Mrs. Brightman, the headmistress, is nicknamed “the black witch” by the students. The four are hoping to paddle their way to a new life of freedom and family, canoeing from the Gilead River to the Mississippi, and then onward to St. Louis where the O’Banion brothers believed they had an aunt who would welcome all of them.
During this time, people were starving, they couldn’t find work, and it was fairly easy for unscrupulous people to take advantage of those less fortunate, without fear of reprisals. People were needy. They could be bought and paid off to look the other way. Laws were broken and injustice thrived, as dishonest people feathered their own nests and justified their heinous behavior. Odie and Albert O’Banion were taken to live at the Indian school after the murder of their father, although they were not of Native American background. Odie, four years younger than Albert, was far more precocious and got into trouble often; always impetuous, he spent a lot of time in the “quiet room” there, so much so, that he named the rat that lived in that room, Faria. He often acted without much thought, but his heart was good and he wanted, eventually to be kind to others. He played the “mouth organ” well, and was an expert at storytelling. He created the “four vagabond” stories. He desperately wanted to find his home. Albert was the more careful, and serious brother who was a master of everything involving mechanics. He could fix anything. He was a rule follower, the opposite of Odie who broke rules when he could. His major goal was to protect his brother, Odie. Mose, left wounded and helpless, next to the body of his murdered mother, was strong, generally even tempered but unable to speak because his tongue had been removed by barbaric individuals. He wanted to know who he really was, he wanted a connection to the Sioux, since he had no memory of his past. Emmy, orphaned when the tornado killed her mother, had been injured as a child and was subject to unusual “fits”. She wanted to stay with the boys, when they ran away. She did not want to remain with the Brightmans who wanted to adopt her. She was really not sure what she wanted her future to be, except that she wanted the four vagabonds to be her family.
The children who lived at the Lincoln Indian Training School, were symbols of the real history for orphans and Native Americans, forcibly taken from their parents in order to be educated. No language but English was to be spoken there, although the children did not speak English. The book describes the actual cruel types of treatment many of these children endured at the hands of administrators and employees. At this Indian school, there were few kind teachers or workers. One man, DeMarco, enjoyed his extra job of “strapping” kids when they were “disobedient”, and often, after locking them, hungry and in pain, into a “quiet room”, a cell-like space with only the rat for company, it was rumored he would also abuse some of the boys in unspeakable ways.
Many social issues, such as loneliness, bullying and criminal behavior, alcoholism and depression, as well as familial loyalty, young love and the way in which desperate people solve their problems, some very well, some poorly are covered. There are religious healers, houses of ill repute, Hoovervilles and railroad police to harass those who rode the rails to other places hoping to find work. There were little acts of kindness to uplift the spirits of those who suffered from loss, and they were uplifting and encouraging, but there were also so many unkind acts of cruelty to scar the victims, victims who were so desperate that their behavior reflected their hopelessness.
The book highlights the inequities of society for the Native American and for the poor and alone, during the years of the Depression. As it continues and describes Odie during WWII, it illustrates the continued idea of man's inhumanity to man. The country was in pain, during both of these times, and the suffering people often preyed upon each other. Still, most did have good in them, as well. While the book emphasizes many of the issues of the times, it also, through the use of the suspension of disbelief and the wholehearted belief in some miracles, offers hope to the reader for better times to come for all of the “vagabond four”, and perhaps for us. These four, against all odds, set out on their own to find their freedom and fortunes and the reader will cheer them on.

Combination of adventure story, good vs. evil and the tenacity of the human spirit- that's a winning combination for me! I have kept thinking of various scenes well after I have finished reading it.

Loved this book

This is the first person account of “the four vagabonds,” told by 12-year-old harmonica-playing, storytelling Odie. It is 1932, in the midst of the Depression, and Odie, his older brother, Albert, their Indian friend, Mose, and six-year-old Emmy are traveling by canoe to what Odie hopes is home in St. Louis. All four are orphans who had been living in unacceptable circumstances at an Indian boarding school in Minnesota with its vicious superintendent. The life they are leaving is based on what really did go on at many Indian boarding schools.

Yes, the four are trying to escape their present environment, but the three boys are also running from the law. It is mistakenly believed that they have kidnapped Emmy.

They are paddling their canoe down rivers to their destination, often with no food. Along the way they meet people both good and bad.

Although Odie is angry with God, one person he meets who becomes his friend is a woman of God who heads religious crusades. She has the gift of being able to see someone's past. As time goes on, she recognizes that Emmy also has a gift, being able to see someone's future and sometimes being able to alter it slightly.

Of course, they meet others, too, such as a horrible man who forces them at gunpoint to work on his failing farm. They also meet many families living in "Hoovervilles," groups of people living in makeshift tents or shacks, and befriend some of them. The four vagabonds find friends to help them get where they're headed and foes trying to find them.

Although the depicted treatment of Indians and Indian boarding schools is accurate, I found other parts of this story too hard to believe. And those parts, for me, made this book seem young adultish, not meant to be questioned by an adult. As a YA book, though, this is excellent.

Loved this book! Couldn’t put it down.

One of the best I’ve read lately. Could not put it down.