Book Review: Between Earth and Sky by Amanda Skenandore

I haven’t written a book review in a long time. I wonder if I remember how. I guess I’ll give it a go.

This was Kelly’s pick for my regular book club. She’s new to the group and we told her, at her first discussion meeting that she was next in line. She jumped in and picked Between Earth and Sky by Amanda Skenandore. It’s a historical fiction told in two interlocking stories. The first is in the 1880’s, when Alma is a girl and her family moves to no-wheres-ville Wisconson so that her father can start an “experiment” called Stovers School for Indians. Here, Indians learn the ways of the white man. Alma believes, as all the other white people believe, that the Stovers school will be the salvation that allows Indians to discard their savage ways and advance in a world that is righteous and white.

Never mind that the thing they need saving from is the white people at the school... but, I digress. Alma, who yearns for friends, ignores her mother’s pleas to keep her distance from the “redskin” children and is soon finding family with them. Because we have the benefit of hindsight, we can cringe at Alma’s naiveté even as we hope her little while woman’s heart is right in its hopefulness.

In 1906, Alma is now a young married woman who chances upon a news article, naming one of her best childhood friends, who just happens to be Native American, as facing charges for murdering someone. She has lost touch with her old friends and her husband doesn’t know anything about the 10 years she lived at Stover. He’s an attorney who she convinces to travel allllll the way to wherever her friend is being tried to help him plead his case. 

The story is told in a way that we know all did not end well at the school. We are also able to learn, along with Alma, about what has happened since she left the school to the Indians who were saved by going to Stover.

Alma is annoying as hell, but that’s because she is so clueless. She reminds me of the well- meaning, but nevertheless racist, woman we all know and love. They are just trying to help. But really, their goal is for everyone to just be Whiter so we can all get along. She never quite understands the stakes for the brown-skinned people or that they may be experiencing the world in a completely different way than she does. Well, not at 10 and only, as an adult, does she shut up long enough to listen to what her friends are trying to tell her. She spends a lot of time saying things like “but why don’t they act, feel, and think like I do!?” It’s exhausting.

 On the other hand, the book is really good, partially because Alma is such a pain in the ass. Surrounded by abuse, poverty, and death, she holds on to an ideal she thinks is her fathers but it hers alone until the end.

The characters are well-defined and fleshed out. The relationships were well developed and the story was touching. My heart- wrenched several times and there were a few times I caught myself talking to the characters (who did not heed my advice). I can only hope that the author took time to research some of the language and practices she portrays here. It’s presented beautifully. It’s a wonderful debut and I hope to see more from this author.

I’m giving this a We Need Diverse Books sticker, though the primary protagonist is white as is the author.

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