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Sign up todayThe Gospel Truth
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Learn moreAward-winning author Caroline Pignat's new historical novel recreates the world of a Virginia tobacco plantation in 1858.
Through the different points of view of slaves, their masters and a visiting bird-watcher the world of the plantation comes to live in this verse novel.
Phoebe belongs to Master Duncan and works in the plantation kitchen.
She sees how the other slaves are treated — the beatings and whippings, the disappearances. She hasn't seen her mother since Master Duncan sold her ten years ago. But Phoebe is trying to learn words and how to read and when she is asked to show the master's Canadian visitor, Doctor Bergman, where he can find warblers and chickadees she starts to see things differently. And Doctor Bergman has more in mind that just drawing the local birds.
Phoebe's friend Shad works on the plantation as well — but mostly he worries about his brother Will. His brother is the last member of his family and he is determined to escape from the master and the tobacco plantation. He has already been caught and beaten more than once. And the stories about life in Canada can't be true, can they? How does a man survive without the master there taking care of everything?
Caroline Pignat graduated from the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor of Arts in English and Religious Studies. She is a teacher, a mentor and coach for children and youth, and an accomplished writer. Caroline is a two-time winner of the Governor General's award for Egghead and Greener Grass.
Reviews
"Stunning and heartbreaking, this poignant novel in verse is a searing portrait of a time and place, 1858 on a southern tobacco plantation where the Master struggles to hold on to the legacy "not people, they're negroes." In poetry that is spare and beautiful, Pignat carefully, exquisitely depicts the reality of that time and of those lives. Here, the things that are left unsaid are as powerful as the harsh and simple truths that are clearly stated. The verse format serves this story well in Pignat's hands. In addition to using this format, she has also chosen to tell the story from multiple perspectives, providing an even more nuanced and multifaceted perspective. Readers are able to see how differently these individuals interpret truth, and even freedom; how each one — in their own way — struggles to do what they perceive to be the right thing; how each person's secrets, hopes and dreams are part of a larger picture. The Gospel Truth is an intricately and beautifully woven story whose characters are vividly and authentically depicted. Each voice is succinctly captured, and the story that the author tells is a realistic rendering of a piece of history that reveals timeless truths about humanity and the indomitable nature of the human spirit."Highly Recommended." Expand reviews
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