Book Review: Stealing by Margaret Verble

My Rating: 4.5⭐

“But a lot of the girls here have already given up. You can see it in their eyes and their shoulders. But not me. I’m not going to be that fence standing alone out in the field, so I don’t give up hope. That would be against my nature. I am descended from people who survived the Trail of Tears.”

It has been over two years since Karen "Kit" Crockett was forcibly sent to The Ashley Lordard Children’s Home. After her mother’s demise Kit was being by her father who though a bit distant was never unkind to her. Close to her late mother’s Cherokee family, Kit had a caring and loving group of relatives who also looked out for her. Her days were spent attending school in town, roaming the countryside, fishing in the bayou, and reading Nancy Drew books borrowed from the bookmobile. When an enigmatic young woman named Bella moves into her late great uncle’s home nearby, Kit makes a new friend. But Kit’s closeness to Bella triggers an unfortunate sequence of events that ultimately lands her father in jail.

Kit is torn away from her family and eventually sent to a Christian boarding school at the age of nine for her education, a Christian upbringing and “good moral values”. At her new school, she meets other children from Native American families and along with them she is forced to shed her heritage and is subjected to ill-treatment, abuse and forced religious indoctrination. In other words, her life as she had known it was being “stolen” from her.

“And we’re told stories about how even little children are naturally evil and about how we’re all born with some sort of sin that has to get washed off of us. But I think the kids here are mean because they’re unhappy. They probably came here unhappy, and being in a children’s home doesn’t improve on that. But, in my experience, grown-ups are a lot meaner than kids.”

Kit begins writing about the events leading up to her father’s trial and subsequent incarceration, and her experiences as a student and boarder at Ashley Lordard in her journal, all the while devising a plan to find a way to return to her family. She hopes to reveal the truth about what goes on in the school and the abuse she is frequently subject to in the hands of Mr. Hodges, the Director whose idea of dealing with a “disciplinary situation” translates into sexually abusing minor girls, mostly targeting those from Native American backgrounds, a fact another victim shares with Kit.

Narrated in the first person, Stealing by Margaret Verble is a compelling read. The author brilliantly captures Kit’s innocence, inquisitiveness, confusion, pain and determination. This is an absorbing read and I found it hard to put down. Set in the 1950s, the story sheds a light on the plight of Native American children who were forcibly sent to boarding schools and compelled to abandon their Native identity and culture. Kit is an endearing protagonist and I was immersed in her world as seen through her eyes. I loved the author’s vivid description of the countryside and Kit’s closeness to nature. The author tackles sensitive themes such as religion, injustice, prejudice and sexual abuse with sensitivity and compassion. In turn, I felt heartbroken, angry and hopeful as I kept turning the pages all the while rooting for Kit. Overall, this is an impactful read that I would not hesitate to recommend.

Many thanks to Margaret Verble, Mariner Books and NetGalley for the eARC of this beautifully-written novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This book is due to be released on February 7, 2023.

⚠ Sexual abuse of a minor