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Caleb's Crossing

Brooks, Geraldine. Book - 2011 Fiction / Brooks, Geraldine, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Brooks, Geraldine 3 On Shelf No requests on this item Community Rating: 4.1 out of 5

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Call Number: Fiction / Brooks, Geraldine, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Brooks, Geraldine
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Westgate Branch

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Downtown 2nd Floor
4-week checkout
Fiction / Brooks, Geraldine 4-week checkout On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor
4-week checkout
Fiction / Brooks, Geraldine 4-week checkout On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor
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Fiction / Brooks, Geraldine 4-week checkout Due 04-13-2024
Westgate Adult Books
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Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Brooks, Geraldine 4-week checkout On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books
4-week checkout
Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Brooks, Geraldine 4-week checkout Due 04-07-2024

Once again, the author takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, she has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure. The narrator of the story is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe's shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb's crossing of cultures. Like the author's beloved narrator Anna, in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha's Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Another Historical Fiction Hit submitted by garotagretta on June 26, 2013, 3:38pm Someone lent me Year of Wonders and I was hooked. I had to read all Geraldine Brooks' books. Caleb's Crossing was just as satisfying as Year of Wonders. It is the believable tale of a friendship that develops between two youths from very different cultures, and explores the ramifications of their knowledge of one another over the passage of time. That two young people would become friends on remote Martha's Vineyard is highly believable. Their individual and joint stories are used to describe the tenor of the times, the customs, all cultural values in both their worlds and successfully demonstrates that even within strict cultural settings, there are variations in opinions and views and actions just as there are in any society or culture. Her writing is always beautiful and the stories captivating.

good historical fiction submitted by 21621031390949 on August 12, 2016, 9:16am Nicely written story of life in coastal Massachussetts in the 1600's and the relationship between a European girl and Nativve American boy.