NovelTea will meet at 3:00 pm on Sunday, July 13, in the Friends Meeting Room on the Plaza to discuss The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. Refreshments will be served.
 
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Author Information - Amanda Peters
 
Amanda Peters is a mixed-race woman of Mi’kmaq and European ancestry, born and raised in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia.
In 2022, Amanda completed a Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indians Arts (IAIA) in New Mexico. In 2021, Amanda won the Indigenous Voices Award for her work of short fiction, Waiting for the Long Night Moon. She was also selected to participate in the 2021 Writers Trust of Canada Rising Stars Program by Metis poet and novelist, Katherena Vermette.
Her short fiction and non-fiction have been published in The Antigonish Review, Grain Magazine, The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Dalhousie Review, and Filling Station Magazine.
Amanda’s first novel, The Berry Pickers, was published in 2023 by HarperCollins in Canada and by Catapult in the US. The novel was a finalist for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize in Canada, and won the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction in the US. The Berry Pickers won the Dartmouth Book Award and the Crime Writers of Canada First Crime Novel Award, and has been translated into sixteen languages around the world. Her most recent book of short fiction, Waiting for the Long Night Moon, was published August, 2024, to critical acclaim.
 
Information from: https://transatlanticagency.com/clients/speakers/amanda-peters/
Discussion Questions a preview
1. Amanda Peters has said that the opening line, "The day Ruthie went missing, the blackflies seemed to be especially hungry," came to her, and the rest of the book followed. How did this line set the scene? What expectations did it give you for the story, and were those fulfilled?
 
2. After Ruthie goes missing, what do you think keeps the remaining family members bound together? What do you think pulls them apart?
 
3. As the last person to see Ruthie before she disappeared, Joe is haunted for the rest of his life. How do you think guilt/regret affected his life, or changed who he could have become?
 
4. How did Norma/Ruthie’s inability to settle surface as the years passed? What was Lenore’s (Norma’s mother) response to these moments? How does Lenore’s response to these
moments affect Norma/Ruthie?
 
5. When Norma/Ruthie starts to question her identity through dreams and physical differences, should Lenore have told her the truth, even if it meant losing her?
 
6. Were you surprised when Norma/Ruthie told Aunt June that she had figured out that she was adopted? Were you shocked to find out that she had actually been kidnapped?
 
7. When Norma/Ruthie finds out her true identity, she holds Aunt June accountable for hiding the truth. Do you think June’s loyalty to her sister is understandable, or does her silence make her as guilty as Lenore?
 
8. Lenore steals Ruthie to fill her own emptiness, but she also gives Ruthie a life of comfort and security. Do you see Lenore as a villain, a victim of her own grief, or something in between? Which actions made you like or dislike her most—and why?
9. When Norma/Ruthie learns the truth, she chooses to reunite with her birth family. Was this the best choice for her happiness. Did it hurt the people who raised her?
 
10. When Norma/Ruthie is reunited with her birth family, she is accepted without question, despite years apart and lost culture. Do you believe family bonds are strong enough to overcome deep wounds like this, or is true reconciliation harder than the novel suggests?
 
11. What role do the physical items Ruthie’s family keeps (the boots and doll) play?
 
12. “I lost my sister when I was six. I let my brother die when I was fifteen, and I left my wife bloody and bruised two weeks ago. That’s my story.” Joe (Chapter 11, page 198) Was Joe able to make peace with himself and his mistakes?
 
13. The book shows the harm from assimilation and lost identity, especially for Indigenous children like Ruthie. Do you think Norma’s journey shows hope for healing and reconnection—or does it show how some losses can never be fully repaired?
 
14. This story weighs heavily on the ability to forgive. As the reader, are you able to find the characters redeemable in any way, or are some unforgiveable?
 
15. Overall, how did you find the balance of tragedy and hope within The Berry Pickers? Do you think the book is more hopeful or more tragic overall?
 
 
 
 
Discussion Questions from: https://www.supersummary.com/berry-pickers/discussion-questions/
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