I Can Make This Promise audiobook

Middle grade literature can too often become heavily reliant on a number of well-worn tropes. For example, this year (2019) we’ve been seeing a slew of books where the mom is dead and the daughter has to essentially care for her grief-stricken father. But this literature isn’t just limited to dead moms. Grief is weighing down the protagonists of 2019 like a heavy blanket. So much so that members of a book committee I serve on have taken to saying, “If nobody’s grieving, then the book wasn’t published in 2019”. Into this wasteland comes I Can Make This Promise. In this book you will not find the main character mourning anyone. This is not to say there isn’t sadness and tragedy tucked into the folds of the plot, but the book doesn’t dwell. Instead, it’s got a kicky little storyline full of family secrets, lying parents, mean friends, and a mystery with an unexpected ending. I think I may have devoured it entirely in one sitting and, when I was done, I felt lighter inside. Set in contemporary Seattle with a Suquamish/Duwamish protagonist, Day (Upper Skagit) highlights a historical injustice by writing a book a kid might actually enjoy reading. No mean task.Imagine you’re poking around your attic and you find a box. Inside there are photographs of a woman who could be your twin. She looks just like you, right down the gap between her teeth. Even stranger, this woman has your first name. “Edith”. But this can’t possibly be a relative. Your mom is Native American and was adopted as a baby. She has no clue who her family even is. Your dad is white, so this woman clearly isn’t from his side. So who is “Edith”? Why is her story in your attic? Why is her name your name? In I Can Make This Promise, a girl digs deep into her family history, finding truths that are painful and stories that are horrifying and yet must be told if any kind of healing can begin. Is it weird that I enjoy books where parents keep secrets from their kids, and the kids know what those secrets are? That’s a pretty unique genre. It’s weird too because as a parent I should be entirely on the parents’ side. Solidarity, right? But if a writer is adept, I’m more than happy to sink into a child’s invocation of righteous indignation. In Day’s story, the secret that the parents hide from their girl is kept a secret for a long time partly because she refuses to ask them about it outright. Sometimes her reluctance can feel contrived. By necessity, her reasons for keeping silent must change as the book progresses, and in a less skillful authors’ hands it would take you out of the story entirely. Fortunately, when the truth comes it’s by Edie and on purpose. It’s not one of her friends. It’s not fate. It’s Edie who asks. As I say, I revel in books where kids can take their parents to task. But I Can Make This Promise is a little different from those other books. There are usually only a couple reasons why parents would hide information from their kids in middle grade novels. Read enough of them and you get a bit jaded. So as much as I was enjoying Ms. Day’s book, I wasn’t expecting much of the big reveal at the end. Odds were that the mom would just relay some family history and you’d find out that her mother had died in childbirth or something and that’s why she was put up for adoption. When the explanation does come, Day has, until that moment, been parceling out her story with great care. She’s been drawing you into Edie’s grandmother’s life with letters and postcards from the get go. By the time you get the full explanation, you feel like you know her. And the back-story isn’t shocking at first. Then you learn about what happened when Edith accompanied her brother into Seattle. You don’t know why, but there’s this strange sense the whole time that something terrible is going to happen. And when the real truth comes out, it isn’t faked or padded or jollied along. It is quick and horrible, all the more so because it is real. I haven’t had a punch in the gut at the end of a middle grade novel, combined with American history I was never taught, like this pretty much ever. Lots of children’s books work American history into their stories. A few from Indigenous writers will discuss Native American history too, but often they involve moments in history that could feel very long ago to the readership. But if you read Day’s Author’s Note at the end, you’ll see that this story involves elements that reference events from the 1950s, 2004, 1989, 2009, and, most importantly, The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. Some of this history is good, and a lot of it is awful. Because of this, Day’s book feels like a rarity. A contemporary story about a Suquamish/Duwamish girl discovering her own heritage? Why does this feel so astoundingly one-of-a-kind? How can we get more books like these on our shelves? The fact that it’s even been written is a good start. More please. A truly enticing, beautifully written story that delivers a historical reveal at just the right time.For ages 9-12.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I picked up this book for #vaultathon, but what I do know is that I learned so much. I've always been an advocate for reading diverse books or reading books with Black characters or books written by Black authors, but what I didn't realize is how much I have to learn. It's easy to advocate for you own experiences, yet be so unaware of the experiences of other marginalized groups around you. This book definitely opened my eyes to some of the troubled experiences that are faced by Native communities. This book tugged at my heart in unexpected ways. Day seemed to excel at drawing the reader into the experiences of her characters. Even though Edie is significantly younger than me as a reader, I found her frustration and anger to be so relevant to even my own life experiences. I wasn't constantly concerned about remembering how old she was because Day was able to create a narrative that required empathy from the reader. I actually found Edie to be a refreshing middle-grade character that was truly invested in learning more about cultural roots and heritage. The actually intertwining of historical events and figures into the text was also extremely rewarding. I was a history major in college; however, it is unwise to assume that I would learn everything about the history of the United States in just four years. There were events and activists described in this book that I had no knowledge of prior to my read. This pushed me to do my own outside research and listen to voices of those that know more than I do. It easy to know that a specific group of individuals has been treated wrong by a governmental system, but to dig into the actual specifics of those wrong doings is enough to make anyone sick (I won't get into specifics here because of spoilers). I was mind blown and plan to make sure that I continue to educate myself and learn more about Native experiences. My only criticism of this book is that I wanted the author to explore the friendship dynamic a little more. It seemed like it played such a huge role in the beginning, but then began to fizzle out towards the middle of the book. I think that friendships are so important to a middle grade intended audience so I would have enjoyed a little more exploration. Overall, this novel was amazing and I can't wait to check out more from this author.

This was so good and so important and just, please read this. Please add it to your TBR.

This is the November 2020 middle grade pick for the NEA Read Across America theme of Native American Perspectives. Stellar, essential middle grade read. Can’t wait to read this aloud to 4th & 5th grades!(Oh, and the picture book pick this month is FRY BREAD - I love this book SO MUCH)

I picked this up because it was a honor book for the 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Award's and we had it available at my library (literally all I did was walk upstairs and grab it off the shelf). I read it during my lunch break over a span of two days and after finishing it I must say that this was an amazing story and I can see why it was nominated. I really wish we had more diverse stories like this when I was in middle school about Native American tribal nations and the various real-world events, people and places they impacted and felt the repercussions from throughout the twentieth century. Similar to young Edie I felt like my eyes were opened to a lot of things I was not aware of by reading this book and her hope and resilient made an impact on me. Also this book was well written with parents and family members that were decent human beings that were there for their kid even when it seemed (to the child) that they weren't. I feel like I get so used to YA books where the parents are usually a) dead b) not present or c) too controlling/stifling that it was nice to read a middle grade book in which the family aspect of the novel was just as important, actually even more so, than the friends. That was well done.

I loved this book about finding home when you didn't know where home was. It made me cry, laugh, aww, and taught me about many different things, which is something that always excites me in a book.Edie finds a box in the attic that holds secrets she never even knew she didn't know. What unfolds is growth, a finding of hard truths, and a tragic story. I especially liked how vivid the descriptions were, whether of the places Edie went in the book, or the drawings she made throughout the story.And then on top of everything Edie was trying to piece together about her family and who she was, there were the other things going on that most people went through in their lives. Realizing your friends might not actually be who you thought they were, the changes in the way you see your parents, and the pains of growing up and seeing the world for the harsh place it can be.Definitely looking forward to more from this author.

So, so good.

A lovely, poignant, IMPORTANT book.

An emotional story about an Indigenous girl finding her identity and her family history, it was emotional, funny and beautiful.

Trigger Warnings: Overfishing, mention of divorce (past), culture appropriation, brown face, racism, forced family separation, cancer and death of family members (past)

Love it. Love it love it love it.It's hard to write a book. It's hard to write a middle grade book. It's hard to write a middle grade book with believable characters that is true to the pain and struggle of that time of life without coming off as patronizing or trite.To do all of that and then ALSO to have your main character exploring some family history from half a century ago AND to have that family history be believable, compelling, page turning, and real as well? That's huge.This novel does that and does it with phenomenal writing, real characters, a setting that lives and breathes and the most gorgeous cover I've see this year.Love it. Love everything about it. Go read it.

Edie is a bright, creative twelve year old girl that harbors a secret question she's ready to find answers for... "Where am I from?" She knows she's Native American, but her mother was adopted by a white family-- and she's always shied away from telling Edie about their cultural heritage. When Edie discovers a memory box of photos and letters from her namesake, Edith Graham, she's determined to learn her truth. A glorious novel of emerging identity, friendships, and many kinds of family. I was glued to this book, filled with so much emotion I actually cried. Award worthy.

This novel is set in the Seattle area - the main character is a middle school aged girl whose mother is a Native American adoptee who has no contact with her birth family. The main character, Edith, finds a memento from her mother's past that sets her off exploring the Native side of her family. It's lovely and asks big, sometimes painful questions but with a gentle enough touch for younger readers. I read this book in almost one sitting. I loved it. Highly recommended.

Bravo! The local setting and the realistic storyline makes this a deeply meaningful read for young people in the PNW. But it’s also a story that is meaningful to our time and this nation. Well written and thoughtful. Highly recommended.