Two people lead him to real faith: Sister Eve, an itinerate evangelist who tells him she only prays for forgiveness, and who shows the children a mother’s love and care. Odie, like many abused and abandoned children, feels unworthy of salvation–unworthy of God’s forgiveness. Krueger uses the “Black Witch,” the head of the school, to show how empty faith can be when it is just religion forced on an audience and how hypocritical all people can be. The best thing about this book was its unexpected positive spin on Christian faith. The need to be loved, to cling to a stranger, the other little nuances that abused and abandoned little girls display are all there in sweet Emmy. The boys are canny and cagy-surviving and protecting Emmy with their wits more than their physical power–though both come into play. The mistrust, the near-paranoia, the longing to belong and to be loved but the inability to let down a guard and relax–they are all present in the boys. The author clearly understands the psychological make-up of abused and abandoned children. The book tells of their “Oddysey” of a journey. Frost is killed in a tornado and the head of Lincoln takes Emmy the boys know they must escape the prison-like school and take the little girl with them. All three boys dote on her little girl, Emmy. Frost–a teacher who has them come help at her farm and shows them some motherly love and tenderness.
The one ray of goodness and decency they have a Lincoln School is Mrs. Their friend “Mose” is a Sioux whose tongue was cut out when his mother was killed. They are in the school due to the local orphanages being filled to capacity or beyond. Odie and Albert are not “Indians” like the other children. Conditions at the school are bleak and brutal–truly a Dickensian setting. It is 1932 and the Depression has struck America. Orphan Odie O’Banion and his older brother, Albert, are sent to live at the Lincoln School–a boarding school for the “assimilation” of Native American Children in Minnesota. I listened to the audio version which was superb. Hearing it compared to Where the Crawdads Sing did it for me. And the cracks? That’s how the light gets inside of us.” Sister Eve My Interestįor once it was the right hype at the right moment that got my attention.
“Only God is perfect…To the rest of us, he gave all kinds of wrinkles….If we were perfect the light he shines on us would just bounce off.
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