The Good Lord Bird
by James McBride
- Selected for 1 Book Club’s Reading List
- 6 Time Power List Bestselling Book
- Honored by the National Book Foundation in 2013
- 2014 BCALA Literary Award
- A New York Times Notable Book for 2013
Publication Date: Aug 05, 2014
List Price: $18.00
Format: Paperback, 480 pages
Classification: Fiction
ISBN13: 9781594632785
Imprint: Riverhead Books
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Parent Company: Bertelsmann
A 2013 National Book Award Winner!
Fleeing his violent master at the side of abolitionist John Brown at the height of the slavery debate in mid-nineteenth-century Kansas Territory, Henry pretends to be a girl to hide his identity throughout the raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859.
From the bestselling author of The Color of Water and Song Yet Sung comes the story of a young boy born a slave who joins John Brown’s antislavery crusade—and who must pass as a girl to survive.
Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1857, when the region is a battleground between anti and pro slavery forces. When John Brown, the legendary abolitionist, arrives in the area, an argument between Brown and Henry’s master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave town—with Brown, who believes he’s a girl.
Over the ensuing months, Henry—whom Brown nicknames Little Onion—conceals his true identity as he struggles to stay alive. Eventually Little Onion finds himself with Brown at the historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859—one of the great catalysts for the Civil War. An absorbing mixture of history and imagination, and told with McBride’s meticulous eye for detail and character, The Good Lord Bird is both a rousing adventure and a moving exploration of identity and survival.