What audience would you recommend The Berry Pickers to? Is there another book or author you feel has a similar theme or style?
Thematically, I would recommend Stealing by Margaret Verble. Stealing is told from the perspective of a young Native girl removed from her family and forced to attend a Christian boarding school.
I cannot think of an audience I wouldn’t recommend it to. However, if an individual is deeply committed to one genre, say science fiction, this book might not resonate. Peter’s portrayal of the indigenous Mi’ kmaq reminds me of Louis Erdrich’s work. Family secrets, grief and the lasting effects of trauma have been explored by many authors, most recently by Liz Moore in God of the Woods.
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I’d recommend this book to any audience. The author with a somewhat similar theme is Colson Whitehead for “The Nickel Boys” and “The Underground Railroad.”
I think it would appeal to a large audience of readers. It was not a complicated story, and had a bit of history of the Mi’kmaq people, (although I would have liked more on that subject) and had a happy ending.
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The Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power (2023)
looks at the impacts of the attempted erasure of native heritage by disrupting family relations (the Indian Boarding Schools). The author traces this through three generations. It’s historical fiction. Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence (2021) is terrific too.
I think anyone interested in historical fiction, as it relates to our own time, with distinctive characters and good writing, would enjoy this book and the others suggested here.
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