The Berry Pickers
Every book purchase is a big deal to me because libraries are my main source. While teaching in Maryland public schools, I read library hard copies of books before buying the paperback years later. I kept seeing The Berry Pickers: A Novel by Amanda Peters on multiple lists like best books of the month or best books of the year, so my local librarian told me it was on order.
When visiting the library, “my personal happy place,” I wondered where the book was? It was available to me on screen only, so off I went to Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park, CA. Book of Maps was purchased at this vast bookstore last year by our son long before I had my copy in South Carolina.
Finally holding the lovely covered book of large lush blueberries, I happily told the clerk my story. He shared the recent news of the biggest blueberry grown, as big as a ping pong ball. Yes, March news was from an Australian farm beating the record from another Aussie farm a few years ago. Watch those blueberry growers down under! Maybe you heard it in the news, too?
Besides the health value of blueberries on my morning cheerios, this beautiful fruit has an historic fiction novel worth reading in my possession finally. Blueberries for Sal Cookbook by Robert McClosky, et al. (additional blue pen illustrations) was a best seller last summer. Sold out at Oliver and Friends. I bet this new novel will sell this summer in Waterville at Renee Cunningham’s moved and missed bookstore. Scott Cunningham helped with both bookstores, needless to say… (Webmaster’s Note: Oliver and Friends moved from Belgrade Lakes to downtown Waterville this past spring.)
Opening my newly purchased book which I have longed to hold for months, I found a beautiful simple map of Maine showing the easy location of the berry pickers work territory near Bangor area and their home migration route. Migrant workers are in the news a lot, so this story began with high interest on my part.
Amanda Peters creates the beginning of her tale by writing, “I sit with my back to the wall, my pillows flat.”
Mae and Leah are introduced. Older brother Ben and mother are on the first page, too, and so is Joe.
Moving right along is what I like in a novel, so I turn the page. A missing child from the blueberry fields causes great sadness, especially when the local cops show little sympathy. “[L]oneliness that comes with sickness” is a phrase that grabs. How often have you felt this, dear reader of book reviews?
Find this novel at the library or your favorite bookstore and steep yourself in family losses and blueberries picked not too far from Belgrade Lakes.
I know I can not wait to wave to the mailboat everyday and hope for a warm blueberry bag gently placed on my dock some sunny morning in Maine. He always surprises and has a smile.…I make blueberry pancakes from his backyard patch, which is shared with many mailbox stops, not just mine.
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