Through Black Spruce: A Novel Paperback – February 23, 2010

I was hooked from the start. The story has many levels from mystery, to cultural challenges, to human nature. Will is able to give context to the history of his people and Annie provides a view of the conflicts and challenges for youth as they assimilate into the larger culture while struggling to retain the integrity and practices of their people. Joseph Boyden tells a story of human nature, relationship, loss and cultural identity. I look forward to reading more works by this author.

We’d canoed the Moose River to Moosanee last year and our local guide told us about the book. He said the story rang true with the experience of so many in this remote location. Got home and read the book and it was like being there once again. An excellent read, outstanding author and compelling story. I read it on a long flight to Asia and couldn’t put it down.

An incredible follow-up to Joseph Boyden's powerful novel Three Day Road. Fans of that novel and readers new to the works of Joseph Boyden will be similarly impressed and blown over.Through Black Spruce tells the story of two people, each on their own journey, searching for forgiveness, a sense of identity and belonging, and ultimately redemption. It begins with one of the more gripping openings in recent memory and doesn't ease its grip on the reader until the final page.It definitely deserves the Giller Award it won, as well as every other award that will without a doubt come its way.Do yourself a favor: get this book!

Great book, well written, and researched. As someone who has read avidly about WWI and WWII I was amazed how "right" everything sounded. I enjoy shooting and felt that the rifles sounded correct but not having shot some of them I'm no expert. I would recommend this to WWI buffs and people who love a good adventure.

As a recent resident of Moosonee in northern ontario I was told I should read "Through Black Spruce" and I am so glad that I did! Joseph Boyden has a way of transporting the reader to each place his characters go. Living here I was able to have a different perspective and know exactly the places he was talking about in his book. I can actually hear the characters in this book speaking as I read. I cant wait to read "Three Day Road!" I have definately become a huge fan of this authors work!

The book was a bit difficult to get into as the author skips from one character to another in each chapter. As I progressed I thoroughly enjoyed this method of writing and eagerly tried to quickly figure out who this chapter was about and got very good at it as I got to know each character more thoroughly. A really good read, exciting and educational at the same time. Made me feel very compassionate towards the characters in the book. Thanks you Joseph for the good read!

Enjoyed the book very much tho skipping between the main characters was a bit distracting. Descriptions of the areas and problems the native people face were very good. I have not been in the area for several years but personally familiar with the area.

A good yarn about the 1st Nations in Canada. The author keeps perspective on how it really is for the people up in the Hudson's Bay area. While he does slide back and forth a bit the story lines connect and all in all I was looking for more at the ending.

'The Orenda' was my first foray into Joseph Boyden and I was so impressed that I bought a couple of his other, earlier, books to try. There is a thread running through all of these books in that one of the main characters is a 'Bird' and can trace back to their early, Cree Indian character of that name (as in 'The Orenda'). A further similarity is the style of alternating characters in each chapter. In 'Through Black Spruce', the two main characters are Will Bird and Annie, an uncle and niece and their interlocking stories are told in alternating chapters; it's a very effective story telling tactic.This is a very slow paced and gentle book and, really, little actually seems to happen. The story emerges gradually rather than being set out at an early stage and this narrative is all the better for that. If you are looking for a fast paced and/or action packed romp, then look elsewhere 'cos it certainly isn't here. However, I was amazed at how gripping this slowly unravelling story becomes and I was almost immediately immersed in the characters and racing to read the next portion of their stories. This created a quirk for me: as each chapter ended and I began to read the following chapter, it now switched to the other character (either Will or Annie) and I resented being torn away from the story of just the previous page. But a couple of paragraphs in and I was again hooked into that story until, at the end of that chapter.... you get the idea.What made this book special for me was the insight into the world of the native American Indians living on the borders between Canada and the USA, a genre of work I know very little about. For me, this book was just a little bit too slowly paced and I was disappointed that it doesn't, really, have a proper ending (actually, the ending is true to real life rather than fiction). I preferred 'The Orenda' but, then again, Mr Boyden wrote 'Through Black Spruce' in an earlier part of his career. I have still awarded four stars here as, criticism aside, the word that best describes this book is 'beautiful' and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I feel like a better person for having read it. I will move onto my next Joseph Boyden now because I do think that he's quite a special author.

I read Three Day Road first and enjoyed that, but I have struggled with this book. For some reason I have found the way the story goes backwards and forwarding between the narrative of the Uncle and niece heavy going. It seems to be taking ages for the story to REALLY get anywhere...Having said that, the tantalising carrot of "what has happened to the sister" has kept me reading it....Except that for the moment I've not finished it as I have started another more entertaining novel....

I visited Moosonee and Moose Factory in the 70s, so Through Black Spruce brought back a lot of memories. Apart from an interesting story line the book gives a brilliant description of the beautiful but harsh landscape as well as life in this remote part of Canada.

Moosonee and surrounding area ,it's seasons and the resulting life challenges beautifully described, story line initially slow but picks up as the book progresses.

Great deal on good condition book