{"id":3107,"date":"2019-06-05T14:19:20","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T18:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=3107"},"modified":"2019-06-05T14:19:20","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T18:19:20","slug":"book-review-the-good-lord-bird-by-james-mcbride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=3107","title":{"rendered":"Book review:  The Good Lord Bird by James McBride"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/16171272-the-good-lord-bird\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images.gr-assets.com\/books\/1385349791m\/16171272.jpg?ssl=1\" alt=\"The Good Lord Bird\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/16171272-the-good-lord-bird\">The Good Lord Bird<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/11728.James_McBride\">James McBride<\/a><br><br>\nMy rating: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/show\/2844978246\">4 of 5 stars<\/a><br><br><br>\nI have to admit I was unenthusiastic about reading this book, as it was an assigned book for our son&#8217;s 11th grade English class. (Assigned reading is about as appealing to me now as it was when I was in high school.) That being said, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. The book takes place during the events leading up to John Brown&#8217;s ill-fated raid on Harper&#8217;s Ferry. Henry Shackelford, a slave, is mistaken for a girl by John Brown and his army, and it is from Henry&#8217;s perspective that we witness the various events leading up to Harper&#8217;s Ferry. Topics such as gender roles, slave vs free, abolitionists vs pro-slavers are all deftly explored in a spirit of genuine curiosity and open-mindedness. The author makes no heavy-handed proclamations but weaves the historical events and characters (including visits with Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass) together seamlessly with the protagonist&#8217;s personal journey of growth and self-knowledge.<br>The end is well-known, of course, but the book is filled with depth, emotion, and a love for humanity that makes it well worth the read.<br>\n<br><br><br>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/list\/1396812-may\">View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Good Lord Bird by James McBride My rating: 4 of 5 stars I have to admit I was unenthusiastic about reading this book, as it was an assigned book for our son&#8217;s 11th grade English class. (Assigned reading is about as appealing to me now as it was when I was in high school.) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40],"tags":[219],"class_list":["post-3107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-historical-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p23QXm-O7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3108,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3107\/revisions\/3108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}