The Poisonwood Bible

Locations
Call Number: BOCD Fiction, Adult BOCD / Fiction / General / Kingsolver, Barbara
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	BOCD Fiction	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult A/V 4-week checkout	Adult BOCD / Fiction / General / Kingsolver, Barbara	4-week checkout	Due 05-15-2024

Compact discs.
Read by Dean Robertson.
The drama of a U.S. missionary family in Africa during a war of decolonization. At its center is Nathan Price, a self-righteous Baptist minister who establishes a mission in a village in 1959 Belgian Congo. The resulting clash of cultures is seen through the eyes of his wife and his four daughters.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The Poisonwood Bible submitted by Jen Chapin-Smith on August 30, 2013, 8:58am A Southern Baptist family from the United States travels to a remove village in the Belgian Congo shortly before the nation's independence in this novel set in the 1960s through the 1980s. "The Poisonwood Bible" tells the story of the family's four daughters who each experience the move differently and talk about it in their own voices. The book particularly points to the hubris of American missionary and charitable work. For example, the preacher never really leans the local language well and so mistakenly uses the word "poisonwood" when he means to say "holy." He just assumes that the local people will follow his lead and convert not only to his religion but to all aspects of his culture, including how to "correctly" grow food.

The book also examines the US government's condescending attitudes towards Africa as the US tries to build the new nations in its own image, uses them as part of the Cold War fight against the USSR (without the African countries seeing any benefits) and pushes an economic policy that benefits Americans but not Africans. Attitudes about race and gender show up as each daughter narrates the events from her own perspective.

The local people are very kind to the missionary family, accepting them as part of their community, despite the problems they present. The local people even rescue the missionaries from an insect attack, although one man has to put sticks in his ears to block out the pastor's preaching in the midst of the rescue attempt.

I found the book fascinating and highly recommend it. The only part that is problematic is the part about the one daughter being "cured" of her disability, as if it were just a temporary, fixable problem and not a core and perfectly acceptable part of her identity.