Book Review: Shelterwood

I enjoyed Lisa Wingate's Before We Were Yours. So, I was thrilled to learn my library had another book I've heard about, written by Wingate, Shelterwood. You can tell this author leans into research. She clearly spent a great deal of time investigating the true aspects of this story. Then, she fleshes it out with a fictional story. Like in Before We Were Yours, this is a dual timeline story.

In Oklahoma, 1909, eleven-year-old Olive Augusta Radley is sure her stepfather means to harm her. She takes the six-year-old Choctaw girl, living with them, and runs away. They use their wits to evade capture several times, always on the run from people who wish to exploit them. In Oklahoma, 1990, Valerie Boren Odell is settling in to her new job as a ranger at Horssethief Trail National Park. She is a single mother with a heart for children. Thus, she is drawn into the mysterious disappearance of a teenager, alongside the discovery of the bones of three children buried in a cave.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as the previous book, but that is probably entirely due to a current reading slump. It may have also been harder to stay focused on this long, rambling story because I was only snatching a few minutes listening time here or there in car trips. I will say, the book made me want to write a historical fiction novel (if only I could dig up some interesting tid-bit of history that has been unexplored). It is criminal what happened to young children and orphans when their land was stolen from under them. They were powerless to fight the theiving adults and often ended up living homeless in the woods, like Olive. If you are from Oklahoma or are interested in the plight of young Indian children, this book is sure to interest you.