The Good Lord Bird
Book description
Now a Showtime limited series starring Ethan Hawke and Daveed Diggs
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction
From the bestselling author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, Deacon King Kong (an Oprah Book Club pick) and The Color of Water comes the story of a young boy…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Good Lord Bird as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
At first, I was hesitant to read this book because the set-up sounded preposterous – a Black boy disguised as a girl called Onion travels with abolitionist John Brown from Kansas to Harper’s Ferry. Yet, however improbable the protagonist may be, author James McBride explores real history through Onion’s eyes.
The story starts in Kansas when abolitionists and pro-slavery factions are battling over the territory’s future. (Kansas is not yet a state.) It ends in Harper’s Ferry with Brown’s raid on the armory, an event that helped spark the Civil War.
Some of the action does feel exaggerated or…
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