Andover Reads: The Berry Pickers

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

Recommended by Emma Lavoie, Administrative Assistant, Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology

A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly 50 years. 

The Berry Pickers is a heartbreaking, riveting tale of Indigenous family separation. We follow an indigenous Mi’kmaq family in Nova Scotia who travels every summer to Maine to pick blueberries as migrant workers. In the summer of 1962, 4-year-old Ruthie, the youngest of the family’s five children, disappears from the fields. The last to see her is the second youngest, 6-year-old Joe, who takes the loss especially hard and carries his guilt in the years to come. 

The book is told through two alternating character perspectives—one being Ruthie’s brother Joe and the second being a young girl named Norma. Growing up in Maine as the only child of affluent and overprotective parents, Norma struggles to find the truth behind her recurring dreams and visions (that seem more like memories than imagination). As time and secrets unfold, these two storylines ultimately converge.

This is a treasure of a book—filled with loss and sadness yet manages to be hopeful as well. Amanda Peters (Mi’kmaq, Glooscap First Nation) has a lot of empathy for her characters and gently invites readers to examine the affects of intergenerational trauma, racist residential institutions, and the specific ways Indigenous families were treated—in a deeply personal way. 

This story is both powerful and moving. Although told quietly, it did not take away from its impact.