Echoes of the Old Country

This should have been such a fascinating book, but sadly it was a slog and a half. Jessica Clark compiled 200 oral history interviews taken in the early 2000's for the Dakota Memories Oral History Project and attempts to combine them all into a narrative on what it was like growing up German-Russian on the Northern Plains. Rather than being filled with lots of anecdotes and stories, it's written as "many children enjoyed playing games such as...." and it is SO SO REPETITIVE!! The same thing will be said in four different ways. Also the word "German-Russian" appears at least 20 times per page. The author could have saved at least 20 pages of manuscript had she just abbreviated it to GR or something. The best parts of the book were the photographs and the sprinkling of anecdotes that were included (it wasn't near as many as it should have been with 200 interviews). A slog. And the cover.... awful. I hate to be a hater, because again, this should have been so interesting, but it was too repetitive to bear.