The Good Lord Bird

I loved reading this book. It's the story of a young boy in slavery who is mistaken for a girl and “freed”/kidnapped by John Brown during a raid and then, because he has nowhere else to go, stays with Brown's ragtag army as they skirmish across Kansas and prepare for their assault on slavery at Harper's Ferry. “Onion,” as the boy-posing-as-girl is known, is ambivalent throughout the book–always meaning to get away, but never quite doing it, believing that John Brown is insane, but also loving and admiring him. Onion's ambivalence makes him a great narrator–detached enough to be a very funny storyteller, but invested enough to make the story incredibly moving. It's a pleasure to recognize a nod to Huckleberry Finn in the hilarious narration and the theme of youth observing adult hypocrisy, but this story is all its own.