Caleb's Crossing
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3.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A richly imagined novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller, PEOPLE OF THE BOOK.
'CALEB'S CROSSING ... reconfirms Geraldine Brooks's reputation as one of our most supple and insightful novelists' NEW YORK tIMES When Bethia Mayfield, a spirited 12 year old living in the rigid confines of a 17th-century English Puritan settlement, meets Caleb, the young son of a Wampanoag chieftain, the two forge a secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other.As Bethia's father, a Calvinist minister, tries to convert the Wampanoag to his own strict faith, he awakens the wrath of the medicine men. Caleb becomes a prize in a contest between old ways and new, eventually taking his place at Harvard, studying alongside the sons of the colonial elite. Fighting for a voice in a society that requires her silence, Bethia becomes entangled in Caleb's struggle to navigate the intellectual and cultural shoals that divide their two worlds. From the few facts that survive of Caleb's extraordinary life as the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College in 1665, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks creates a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pulitzer Prize winner Brooks (for March) delivers a splendid historical inspired by Caleb Cheeshahteaumauck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard. Brooks brings the 1660s to life with evocative period detail, intriguing characters, and a compelling story narrated by Bethia Mayfield, the outspoken daughter of a Calvinist preacher. While exploring the island now known as Martha's Vineyard, Bethia meets Caleb, a Wampanoag native to the island, and they become close, clandestine friends. After Caleb loses most of his family to smallpox, he begins to study under the tutelage of Bethia's father. Since Bethia isn't allowed to pursue education herself, she eavesdrops on Caleb's and her own brother's lessons. Caleb is a gifted scholar who eventually travels, along with Bethia's brother, to Cambridge to continue his education. Bethia tags along and her descriptions of 17th-century Cambridge and Harvard are as entertaining as they are enlightening (Harvard was founded by Puritans to educate the "English and Indian youth of this country," for instance). With Harvard expected to graduate a second Martha's Vineyard Wampanoag Indian this year, almost three and a half centuries after Caleb, the novel's publication is particularly timely.
