Something to Hold

Amazon Best Children’s Books of the Month, December 2011: Something to Hold is a remarkable story of prejudice and courage told through the eyes of eleven-year-old Kitty, a white girl whose family moves to an Oregon state Indian reservation in 1962. Kitty gets a rough and friendless start at school but soon sees, for the first time, the injustice regularly meted out to her Indian classmates, and recognizes that the ugly stereotyping she hears from outsiders is far from the truth. Kitty’s compassion and desire to help her fellow students is moving, as is her curiosity and respect for Indian culture. Based on the author’s own childhood experiences, Something to Hold is a work of historical fiction that still resonates in the world we live in today. --Seira Wilson