Verble’s “Stealing” is a classic

Margaret Verble’s Stealing will stand in my bookshelf among the books it reminds me of: To Kill a Mockingbird, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Harriet the Spy. Stealing needs to be a classic equal to the most important of these other books — whichever one you deem that to be.

It’s a story of a motherless daughter who shows the self sufficiency of a skilled and extraordinary child, contributing to her family and loved by them, until a cascade of awful events beyond her ability to manage.

It reminds me of the above-mentioned books in its voice and its regional vernacular, in its character’s reliance on skills honed in real life (in this case, on a rural Arkansas river bayou), in its time period (mid-20th century), and in its portrayal of flawed adults — good people and bad. 

Verble’s use of what I call the “kid voice” and style feels so dead-on, and so honest, that I felt as if the character, Kit Crockett, were sitting across from me and telling the story herself. Verble subtly signals the reader of what’s ahead and what’s in the backstory, so that the reader knows what we need to know even if the character doesn’t. The writing is so artful that it seems artless. I won’t be so unsubtle as to provide specific trigger warnings. The character / the author does it herself — with such a light touch that you don’t want to believe in what’s about to be revealed. 

And yet the character and the book are the most inspiring and uplifting I’ve read in a long time. 

Buy this book, read it, talk about it, make it the classic of literature that this Native American story deserves to be.