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The Barren Grounds, by David A Robertson
Jun. 19th, 2021 08:33 pmA middle grade novel about two Indigenous foster kids who find a portal into another world! Morgan, the older kid, has been in foster care for as long as she can remember, bounced between a whole series of foster homes of varying quality, and she's really struggling. Eli is a year younger and has just entered foster care for the first time after losing his family, and is having a very different kind of tough time.
There are definite Narnia vibes to the story -- the kids go through a portal into a land of endless winter, meet talking animals, and end up trying to help them fix the winter problem. In this respect it kind of reminds me of the Birchbark House series (by Louse Erdrich), which is specifically written to tell an Indigenous focused story in response to the Little House series. If this is a trend then I am all for it!
Anyway I was barely into The Barren Grounds before I was extremely invested in Morgan being okay, she is so clearly a good kid trying her best but fucked up by her life experiences and acting out as a result, and so I was THERE for the rest of this book.
Eli and Morgan react to the land beyond the portal very differently, due to their very different experiences of their Indigenous identity, but it allows both of them a chance to explore that identity. It also gives them space to figure out how to get to know each other better and to bond with each other!
There are some awkward turns of phrase in this book that occasionally threw me off, but overall I think it's a really excellent book, and I just zoomed through it.
There are definite Narnia vibes to the story -- the kids go through a portal into a land of endless winter, meet talking animals, and end up trying to help them fix the winter problem. In this respect it kind of reminds me of the Birchbark House series (by Louse Erdrich), which is specifically written to tell an Indigenous focused story in response to the Little House series. If this is a trend then I am all for it!
Anyway I was barely into The Barren Grounds before I was extremely invested in Morgan being okay, she is so clearly a good kid trying her best but fucked up by her life experiences and acting out as a result, and so I was THERE for the rest of this book.
Eli and Morgan react to the land beyond the portal very differently, due to their very different experiences of their Indigenous identity, but it allows both of them a chance to explore that identity. It also gives them space to figure out how to get to know each other better and to bond with each other!
There are some awkward turns of phrase in this book that occasionally threw me off, but overall I think it's a really excellent book, and I just zoomed through it.
