Book
The Letter Writer
by Ann Rinaldi
Buy the book from:
Eleven-year-old Harriet Whitehead earns attention by reading and writing letters for people around her Virginia community. She does not fully understand how information about roads, households and movements may be used until Nat Turner’s uprising transforms ordinary correspondence into evidence of danger and betrayal.
The novel makes literacy both gift and risk within a slave society that polices Black communication and depends on white children remaining ignorant of its violence. Harriet must confront the consequences of acting without understanding and the impossibility of remaining innocent once repression and retaliation begin.
Genres
Historical people
More by the author
Other books by Ann Rinaldi
