Gather

De: Kenneth M. Cadow

Narrado por: Malcolm Quinn Silver-Van Meter

A resourceful teenager in rural Vermont struggles to hold on to the family home while his mom recovers from addiction in this striking debut novel.

Ian Gray isn’t supposed to have a dog, but a lot of things that shouldn’t happen end up happening anyway. And Gather, Ian’s adopted pup, is good company now that Ian has to quit the basketball team, find a job, and take care of his mom as she tries to overcome her opioid addiction. Despite the obstacles thrown their way, Ian is determined to keep his family afloat no matter what it takes. And for a little while, things are looking up: Ian makes friends, and his fondness for the outdoors and for fixing things lands him work helping neighbors. But an unforeseen tragedy results in Ian and his dog taking off on the run, trying to evade a future that would mean leaving their house and their land. Even if the community comes together to help him, would Ian and Gather have a home to return to?

Told in a wry, cautious first-person voice that meanders like a dog circling to be sure it’s safe to lie down, Kenneth M. Cadow’s resonant debut brings an emotional and ultimately hopeful story of one teen’s resilience in the face of unthinkable hardships.

©2023 Kenneth M. Cadow (P)2023 Spotify Audiobooks

Rural done right, for once

Rural characters in books mostly make me wince. They spend a lot of time thinking about their ruralness, turn too many -ings into -in’s, and use the wrong tool for a job. But Ian could be the kid up the road from my farm. Malcom Silver-Van Meter nails the voice in his reading.

The Real Deal

As a rural NH teacher of 30 years, I can say this is the truth of life for young people whose families have worked and owned the land for hundreds of years, and are now struggling to make ends meet. Ian’s voice is authentic, honest, and beautiful in his musings on life, what matters, and the many things that shouldn’t matter. Beautifully written, each character is developed well, the whole story is based in the stark reality of what growing up as “rural poor” means in America today.
You will laugh, you’ll likely cry, and you will shake your head at the wisdom on these pages. But you definitely won’t be disappointed.

Great family w/ teens read

The only thing that would make this better would be to have a Vermont reading the story. Some of the pronunciations are not at all true to the regions vernacular.

A rarity of a novel

As someone who teaches 8th and 9th grade English, I can tell you it can be quite a challenge to find a novel that's level-appropriate AND rich, artful, moving, and simply kind. Most YA has a marketing driven paint-by-numbers template you can feel in your spine while reading. What Cadow has done here is write an all-ages novel in the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye, but from the point of view not of the uber-wealthy son of a corporate Manhattan attorney, but from a boy, Ian Henry, who is an afterthought for so many people, the kind of young person growing up in poverty who we would all do well to better understand and listen to. As it's May right now, you better believe I'm looking forward to summer. But one of the reasons I'll be excited to return to school in August is the chance to read this book alongside my 8th graders next year. The singular voice of the narrator, and the wonderfully understated performance here by Silver-Van Meter, are going to lodge themselves in my students' minds, make them think about the natural world, about the vast inequality ingrained in our vicious capitalist system, and about the great value of friendship and community. Fantastic novel from start to finish.