A Most Perilous World: The True Story of the Young Abolitionists and Their Crusade Against Slavery

Gaddy (Well of Spoons, for adults) views the fight against slavery in the U.S. during the Civil War era from the perspectives of four mid- to late-19th-century teens determined to build upon their abolitionist parents’ work. Lewis Douglass, son of activist Frederick Douglass, worked for his father’s newspaper in Rochester before enlisting in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first Black military regiment formed by the U.S. government. In Boston, George Garrison, son of the Liberator newspaper editor William Lloyd Garrison, resisted following his father’s career, traveling West to help bolster anti-slavery efforts: “George wanted to learn by doing, not by reading books.” Charlotte Forten, whose family founded the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society, left Pennsylvania to teach Black children in the South. And advocate Miller McKim’s daughter Lucy eagerly dedicated herself to anti-slavery activism while opposing her family’s expectation that she also become a wife and mother. Initial chapters detail the figures’ childhoods, imagined in somewhat plodding prose. Still, immersive newspaper clippings, excerpts from historical documents, and subjects’ diary pages—particularly Forten’s, which extensively detail her teaching experiences—recount the figures’ lives from 1854 to 1872, making for an absorbing portrait of young adults trying to do good in a divided nation. Ages 14–up. (June)

Correction: The text of this review has been updated for clarity.