The Taking: Before They Flooded the Quabbin

A window into the 1920s, this novel opens when young Josiah loses his parents and has to leave the city of Boston, moving to rural western Massachusetts. There, he struggles to adapt to life on his aunt and uncle’s farm and to adjust to a one-room school, where he meets Addy, who becomes a friend, and Alvin, the school bully. As his sense of belonging slowly grows, so does his realization that the Swift River Valley, where he now lives, may be destroyed to create an enormous reservoir to supply water to Boston. The largely untold story of life in the towns flooded to create the Quabbin Reservoir is presented as a backdrop to Josiah’s story, as is a picture of traditional New England farming through the seasons.