Your book club made a great choice with The Berry Pickers. It will give your reading group much to discuss about. This heartbreaking contemporary fiction novel follows the life of an indigenous family who navigates life after their four year old goes missing. The book’s main themes are grief and guilt, indigenous family bonds, Canada’s assimilation policies, and the loss of one’s culture.
Be ready for a riveting discussion using these The Berry Pickers book club questions. The complete discussion guide features a book synopsis, ten book club questions, and some selected reviews. At the very end of the guide, you’ll find three book suggestions similar to The Berry Pickers to consider for your next book group discussion.
(This article contains affiliate links. This means that if you choose to purchase, I’ll make a small commission.)
The Berry Pickers Synopsis
(We always chose to provide the publisher synopsis because we feel that it’s worthwhile to discuss whether the official book description actually squared with your experience of the book.)
The Berry Pickers, Amanda Peters
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.
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.
For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.
10 Book Club Questions for The Berry Pickers
These questions have been tailored to this book’s specific reading experience, but if you want more ideas, we also have an article with 101 generic book club questions.
- How does this novel speak to white supremacy and systemic oppression in North America? Which aspects of the story make a broader argument about racism in Canadian culture?
- Grief and guilt are major themes throughout the story. How are grief and guilt connected in the narrative? Lenore and Joe, who both experience different degrees of guilt. Where and how are the two emotions blurred into one?
- Discuss the motif of Nora’s dreams throughout the story. What do they mean and which of the novel’s broader themes do they speak to?
- “The white folks at the store where we got our supplies said that Indians made such good berry pickers because something sour in our blood kept the blackflies away. But even as a boy of six, I knew that wasn’t true.”
This passage speaks to the theme of anti-indigenous racism. How might everyday racism contribute to broader systemic inequalities and injustices in society?
- Norma and Ruthie each hold onto different pieces of their past through sensory memories and physical objects. How do they each use these memories and objects to reclaim their culture’s identity?
- Discuss the theme of Indigenous family bonds. How would you characterize Ruthie’s birth family in comparison to her white family?
- “My mother, through no fault of her own, has come to love the church, the elaborate ceremonies replacing the ones torn from her heart during a childhood she rarely mentioned.”
This passage speaks to the theme of assimilation policy and loss of culture. How do these characters’ relationships with religion help shape their identities and world?
- How do you think being separated from one’s cultural roots might impact an individual’s identity and sense of belonging?
- Lenore’s headaches are a manifestation of her hidden guilt. How do these physical symptoms reflect the internal conflict she faces, and what could be some alternative ways she could have dealt with her guilt?
- Think about the lost children within the text. How do they link Lenore, Ruthie, and Ruthie’s mother? How did each woman respond to the loss of a child and carry on with life?
Selected Reviews for The Berry Pickers
(Use these selected Goodreads reviews to compare with your own experience of the book. Do you agree or disagree with the reviews?)
“2.5* I was so incredibly excited about this book but it sadly didn’t live up to my expectations. The characters felt somewhat one dimensional and the plot, whilst initially intriguing, dragged a little in places and felt inevitable in a way that left me feeling a little flat. That being said, I appreciate what this story did in terms of shining a light on the historical and current mistreatment of Native Canadians but unfortunately this was the only part of the story I found fully engaging.”
“4.5 rounded up. A heartfelt, raw look at the violence wreaked upon indigenous families not only by the adoption industry itself, but by the cultures of white entitlement, objectification of children, and the noxious consequences of the nuclear family. Yet this is also far from a polemical book — it is realistically emotionally ambivalent and often surprising, with characters behaving in frustratingly, realistically infuriating ways.”
“I have no praise to offer for this book, except that I do love berries and can concoct a berry-themed dessert for book club to fuel my takedown of this utterly abhorrent novel. While the inclusion of Indigenous voices in literature is crucial, it is not an excuse to laud and publish subpar works simply based on that merit. The writing quality here is abysmal, the plot is painfully predictable, and the emotional manipulation rivals that of a Hallmark movie at its worst.”
“I really thought the story was beautiful and loved the ending but I thought the pacing of the book was off. I also thought the author struggled to make the switch in timelines clear so I often had to reread paragraphs to figure out whether it was a flashback or the present. It also wasn’t a book that I was dying to read when I got home… the only reason I read it quickly was because it was our book club book.”
Books Similar to The Berry Pickers
If you’re keen for more family drama and fruit, we’ve got a discussion guide for Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake. For more motherhood, guilt and mysteries, try Homecoming by Kate Morton.
The Stolen Child, A Novel, Ann Hood
If you want another story about families going through loss, then this is your next read. This mystery, romance, and historical fiction novel is about a missing baby and an American soldier during WWI in France. A heartfelt story about secrets, lost love that’s found again, and the nature of forgiving.
The Last of the Moon Girls, Barbara Davis
If you’re interested in another story about family secrets, then this is your next read. A mystery and fantasy book that tells a story of Lizzy, a descendant of the moon girl healers, who returns to her family’s farm after her grandmother’s death, and discovers a secret. A story full of secrets, memories, family, and magical healing.
How the Light Gets In, Joyce Maynard
If you want another story about family struggles through time, then this is your next read. This complex coming of age story is a continuation of the previous book Count the Ways about three generations of a family and its matriarch. This contemporary fiction follows the lives of her family for fifteen years from 2010-2024. A story complete with family tragedy, relationships and love, and the passage of time.
Share these book club questions for The Berry Pickers with your friends:
