The Good Lord Bird (National Book Award Winner): A Novel [Paperback]

Soon to be a Showtime limited series starring Ethan Hawke

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction

A Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Oprah Magazine Top 10 Book of the Year

From the bestselling author ofThe Color of Water,Song Yet Sung, Five-Carat Soul,andKill 'Em and Leave, a James Brown biography, comes the story of a young boy born a slave who joins John Brown’s antislavery crusade—and who must pass as a girl to survive.

Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1857, when the region is a battleground between anti- and pro-slavery forces. When John Brown, the legendary abolitionist, arrives in the area, an argument between Brown and Henry’s master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave town—with Brown, who believes he’s a girl.

Over the ensuing months, Henry—whom Brown nicknames Little Onion—conceals his true identity as he struggles to stay alive. Eventually Little Onion finds himself with Brown at the historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859—one of the great catalysts for the Civil War.

An absorbing mixture of history and imagination, and told with McBride’s meticulous eye for detail and character,The Good Lord Birdis both a rousing adventure and a moving exploration of identity and survival.Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction
Winner of the Morning News Tournament of Books

A magnificent new novel by the best-selling author James McBride…a brilliant romp of a novel…McBride—with the same flair for historical mining, musicality of voice and outsize characterization that made his memoir,The Color of Water, an instant classic—pulls off his portrait masterfully, like a modern-day Mark Twain: evoking sheer glee with ló¹