The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

Monday, March 11 through Friday, March 29, 2024. Read by Norman Gilliland and Michele Good.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. Meanwhile in Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

(Harper Perennial; ISBN-10: 14434681815)

Theme: “Valse Triste”, Jean Sibelius; English String Orchestra, William Boughton, conductor; English Chamber Orchestra, Nimbus Records