I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day

Edie Green's father is American and her mother is Native American. She knows her father has roots in Germany, England and Wales but she really doesn't know anything about her mother's family because her mother was adopted. But one summer day, while looking for her mom's Popsicle molds, Edie makes an unusual discovery.

While searching the attic for the molds with her best friends Amelia and Serenity, they discover a box containing the photograph of a young woman who looks remarkably like Edie. The eyes, nose and the shape of her cheeks are similar and like Edie she has a gap between her two front teeth. A letter dated December 14, 1973 is signed Love, Edith. Serenity asks Edie if she knows anything about her mom's family. Edie doesn't other than that her mother was adopted. She wonders who the woman in the picture is and why her parents haven't told her anything about this person who looks so much like her.While Amelia believes Edie should keep her discovery of the box a secret, Serenity thinks she should be honest with her mom.

At dinner, Edie asks her parents how they came to name her Edith since it's such an old fashioned name. But her parents don't really provide Edie with a satisfying answer and she believes they are lying to her. The next morning Edie secretly takes the box from the attic to her room, hiding it in her art chest.

After getting her braces, Edie, Amelia and Serenity begin looking through the box. They find private journals, handwritten letters, head shots of Edith and post cards. Serenity notes that all Edith's letters were sent to an address in Indianola, Washington. They also find her full name, Edith Anne Graham. A journal entry mentions Sacheen Littlefeather who rejected an Academy Award on behalf of Marlon Brando. From that entry the girls learn that Edith was inspired to travel to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry. 

Amelia tells Edie that she wants to use Edith Graham as the inspiration for their film project at school. However, this doesn't seem right to Edie, since she doesn't really know who this person is.

A few nights later, Edie and her parents visit her Uncle Phil's home for his birthday party. When Edie is upset and rude towards her parents, Uncle Phil sits down with her outside to talk. Edie tells him about discovering the box and the journal entry she's read. She tells her uncle that she just wants to know who Edith Graham was and why she's named after her. He encourages Edie to talk to her mom about Edith Graham and when she presses him, he is firm in telling her that it's not his story to tell.

After a breakup with her friend Amelia, and after reading more of Edith's letters, Edie discovers part of the truth and decides to confront her parents. This pushes her mother to finally tell her story to Edie, revealing the painful truth about her past and in doing so, allows Edie to embrace her heritage.

Discussion

I Can Make This Promise is a story about adoption, identity and the meaning of family but at its heart is the story of a young Native American girl's journey to uncover her mother's past and her own heritage. In her Author's Note at the back, Christine Day indicates that she has drawn from her own life experience and her own family's history in crafting this engaging and timely novel. Day, like her main character, Edie Green, is the daughter of a Native American adoptee. A member of the Upper Skagit tribe, Day has incorporated many historical events and people into her novel, which makes the story realistic. This also makes I Can Make This Promise a good starting point for readers to research the Native American tribal nations of the Pacific Northwest, as well common practice of forced adoption of Native American children into white families. 

Day's treatment of the painful practice of forced adoption of Nation American children in the United States is told with sensitivity, through the character of Edie's mom as she explains how she came to be adopted. As the author mentions in her note at the back, "The goal of these coerced adoptions was to assimilate Native people into American society at the expense of tribal nations. Almost all adoptees experienced the loss of their cultures, their identities, and the complex relationships that build the foundations of Native societies." As Edie's mother explains to her, "Between the 1940's and 1970's, about one-third of Native children were separated from their families. Until Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978."

The revelation of her mother's past and her own heritage, not only strengthen Edie's relationship with her mother, but also creates in her a desire to learn more about her Native American roots. In Edie, Day has crafted a resilient, determined young girl who finally learns to trust the adults in her life and who learns to value the virtue of honesty. She also learns what makes a good friendship, like the one she has with Serenity who tells her to trust her parents, and that "Parents can be weird....They make mistakes. But they're not trying to hurt you, Edie."

Young readers will be drawn to I Can Make This Promise by the colourful cover and the high interest story, with such a relevant theme involving the Indigenous peoples of North America. This is an excellent debut novel from a promising Native American author.

Book Details:

I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day
New York: HarperCollins     2019
266 pp.