Stealing

“This powerful novel should join classics like Ernest J. Gaines’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Helena Maria Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.”—New York Times Book ReviewA gripping gut-punch of a novel about a Cherokee child removed from her family and sent to a Christian boarding school in the 1950s—an ambitious eye-opening reckoning of history and small-town prejudices from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble. 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 swift sharp and stunning prose Margaret Verble spins a powerful coming-of-age tale and reaffirms her place as an indelible storyteller and chronicler of history.