African Town
Penguin Young Readers Group · Paperback · January 24, 2023
Chronicling the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860, African Town is a powerful and stunning novel-in-verse.
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- Who it’s for
- Fourteen voices bring a pivotal history into intimate, affecting focus.
- Genres
- Civil War Era YA, Novels in Verse for Teens, African American YA
- Published
- Penguin Young Readers Group, January 24, 2023
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Chronicling the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860, African Town is a powerful and stunning novel-in-verse. In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women and children from Benin and Nigeria were captured and brought to Mobile, Alabama aboard a ship called Clotilda.
Continue reading
Their journey includes the savage Middle Passage and being hidden in the swamplands along the Alabama River before being secretly parceled out to various plantations, where they made desperate attempts to maintain both their culture and also fit into the place of captivity to which they'd been delivered. At the end of the Civil War, the survivors created a community for themselves they called African Town, which still exists to this day. Told in 14 distinct voices, including that of the ship that brought them to the American shores and the founder of African Town, this powerfully affecting historical novel-in-verse recreates a pivotal moment in US and world history, the impacts of which we still feel today.
Many Voices
Fourteen voices bring a pivotal history into intimate, affecting focus.
Come here for
- A novel-in-verse shaped by 14 distinct voices
- History centered on culture, captivity, and community
Expect
- Verse carrying a story across generations of struggle
- A community’s beginnings, rooted in survival and cultural memory
Where it sits
| Novels in Verse for Teens | 78% |
|---|---|
| African American YA | 61% |
| Civil War Era YA | 46% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Civil War Era YA
- Novels in Verse for Teens
- African American YA
- Authors
- Charles Waters, Irene Latham
- Publisher
- Penguin Young Readers Group
- Published
- January 24, 2023
- Format
- Paperback
- Reading lane
- Civil War Era YA