AUDIO BOOK REVIEW: Stealing by Margaret Verble

Publication Date: February 7, 2023 Format: Audio Genre:  Coming of Age/ Indigenous Voices Narrators: DeLanna Studi

Publisher: Harper Audio Length:  6 hours 43 min Buy: Kindle | Audio

Synopsis

Kit Crockett lives on a farm with her grief-stricken, widowed father, tending the garden, fishing in a local stream, and reading Nancy Drew mysteries from the library bookmobile. One day, Kit discovers a mysterious and beautiful woman has moved in just down the road. 

Kit and the newcomer, Bella, become friends, and the lonely Kit draws comfort from her. But when a malicious neighbor finds out, Kit suddenly finds herself at the center of a tragic, fatal crime and becomes a ward of the court. Her Cherokee family wants to raise her, but the righteous Christians in town instead send her to a religious boarding school. Kit’s heritage is attacked, and she’s subjected to religious indoctrination and other forms of abuse. But Kit secretly keeps a journal recounting what she remembers—and revealing just what she has forgotten. Over the course of Stealing, she unravels the truth of how she ended up at the school and plots a way out. If only she can make her plan work in time.

Review: 

Disturbing and emotional and ultimately empowering this coming of age story of a young mixed blood girl who is sent to a Boarding school to be raised with good "christian" values is historical fiction done so well.  Told in the voice of Kit Crockett who writes her story in the hopes of changing her situation. Ultimately I will believe that she does since the story is being shared.  

Kit's Cherokee family wants to raise her when her father is sent to prison for killing two women.  However her father's family has other ideas.  Wanting to give her a good Christian upbringing they send her to a boarding school run by the church.  There her hair is cut and she finds herself getting an eduction but not on anything good.  She learns that telling may also lead to her demise.  

This book drew me in from the beginning.  Maybe since it was written in the child's voice it was that much more captivating.  Her innocence that and treatment of all people as the same when others like to cast their own judgements on them.  How she sees the truth and knows things before they are told to her. 

The author has taken historical fiction to a whole new level for me. 

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