Genre: Book      

Grade: A-

Notable People: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Title: The Water Dancer

Reviews: Suggested to me by my old friend, Budley, the first novel from the acclaimed journalist and later the winner of the National Book Award, tells the story of Th Underground Railroad, through its protagonist, Hiram Walker, a slave born of the union of” The Quality” (owners) and “The Tasked “(slaves). Rich in imagery and filled with magic and mysticism, it’s an utterly compelling portrait of a part of our shared history full of eternal shame. Walker is an inheritor of the powers of “Conduction”, allowing him to transport people out of their bondage, but with great risk and costs, the book, centered in slave ridden Virginia and free Philadelphia, is utterly compelling and brilliantly conceived, but very complicated and, at times, hard for me to read, which I did in short bursts. Took a long time, but extremely revealing. The abundance of horrors is unfathomable.