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 U.S. 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
George learned from his father, William Lloyd Garrison, that his life was supposed to be dedicated to abolition. Lewis’s father, Frederick Douglass, believed that freedom had to be fought for. Charlotte Forten’s prominent Philadelphia family gave her great expectations about what it meant to be a Forten—to be politically active, socially minded, and proud of being Black. Lucy McKim knew as the daughter of an anti-slavery leader her upbringing was unconventional. Since childhood, they had all been committed to the anti-slavery cause, and yet, as young adults in the years leading up to and during the Civil War, they realized they could not just do as their parents and relatives had done. They needed to make their own names, away from the often over-protective or disapproving shadows of the famous adults in their lives, and push the boundaries of their activism.
Kristina R. Gaddy crafts a surprisingly contemporary braided coming-of-age narrative, supported by meticulous research and featuring dozens of primary documents. 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.
