Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award!
7 starred reviews! "Monumental." --Booklist (starred review) *
"A marathon masterpiece."--Kirkus (starred review) *
"Necessary."--SLJ (starred review) * "Shocking and dramatic."--Shelf
Awareness (starred review) * "Mesmerizing, confounding and vividly
rendered."--Book Page (starred review) * "Williams-Garcia's
storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic."--Horn
Book (starred review)
This astonishing novel from three-time National Book Award finalist Rita
Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a
plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork--empathetic,
brutal, and entirely human--and essential reading for both teens and
adults grappling with the long history of American racism.
1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for
more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of
her family's objections, to sit for a portrait.
While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations--from
the big house to out in the fields--of routine horrors, secrets buried
as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and
enslaved, come to light to reveal a true portrait of the Guilberts.
Rita Williams-Garcia is one of the preeminent authors of our time. She
has been honored with the Children's Literature Lecture Award from the
American Library Association.
