A Most Perilous World
The True Story of the Young Abolitionists and Their Crusade Against Slavery
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The stories of the four teenage children of prominent abolitionists before and during the Civil War combine to form a surprisingly familiar tapestry of struggle, disappointment, and ultimately hope.
"Impeccable research and incredible details bring the stories of these four young people to life as they come of age in the years leading up to and during the Civil War."—Kip Wilson, award-winning author of White Rose
Flowers in the Gutter author Kristina R. Gaddy tells the story of America’s tumultuous years leading up to the Civil War and of the war itself from the viewpoints of four children of famous abolitionists, including those of Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. Gaddy crafts a surprisingly contemporary coming-of-age narrative, supported by meticulous research and featuring dozens of primary documents. Each of these four young people—two white, two Black—was strongly committed to the anti-slavery cause but felt just as keenly a need to make their own names, away from the often over-protective or disapproving shadows of the famous adults in their lives. This is a true story of how a torch of resistance is passed and how a new generation makes its mark.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gaddy (Well of Spoons, for adults) views the fight against slavery in the U.S. during the Civil War era from the perspectives of four mid- to late-19th-century teens determined to build upon their abolitionist parents' work. Lewis Douglass, son of activist Frederick Douglass, worked for his father's newspaper in Rochester before enlisting in the 1st Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, the first Black military regiment in the U.S. In Boston, George Garrison, son of the Liberator newspaper editor William Lloyd Garrison, resisted following his father's career, traveling West to help bolster anti-slavery efforts: "George wanted to learn by doing, not by reading books." Charlotte Forten, whose family founded the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society, left Pennsylvania to teach Black children in the South. And advocate Miller McKim's daughter Lucy eagerly dedicated herself to anti-slavery activism while opposing her family's expectation that she also become a wife and mother. Initial chapters detail the figures' childhoods, imagined in somewhat plodding prose. Still, immersive newspaper clippings, excerpts from historical documents, and subjects' diary pages—particularly Forten's, which extensively detail her teaching experiences—recount the figures' lives from 1854 to 1872, making for an absorbing portrait of young adults trying to do good in a divided nation. Ages 14–up.
