A Mercy (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780307264237)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - In "one of Morrison's most haunting works" (New York Times) the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the story of a mother and a daughter--a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.

In the 1680s the slave trade in the Americas is still in its infancy. Jacob Vaark is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives.

Author: Toni Morrison
ISBN-10: 0307264238
ISBN-13: 9780307264237
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 11/11/2008
Pages: 176
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 9.56h x 5.88w x 0.88d

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 6.1
Point Value: 7
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 128034 / Mercy

Award: ALA Notable Books - Winner

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 07/15/2008 pg. 46
Time 09/08/2008 pg. 64
Booklist 09/01/2008 pg. 5
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2008 pg. 912
Publishers Weekly 09/15/2008 pg. 42
Library Journal 10/15/2008 pg. 58
Time 11/03/2008 pg. 75
New Yorker (The) 11/03/2008 pg. 112
Library Journal 11/01/2008 pg. 80
Entertainment Weekly 11/14/2008 pg. 75
People Weekly 11/17/2008 pg. 49
Essence 12/01/2008 pg. 87
Ebony 12/01/2008 pg. 56
Vanity Fair 12/01/2008 pg. 294
Village Voice 11/19/2008 pg. 38
Christian Century 02/24/2009 pg. 46
New York Times Book Review 11/30/2008 pg. 1
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/07/2008 pg. 10
New York Times Book Review 12/07/2008 pg. 64
LJ Best Books of Year 12/15/2008 pg. 64
Village Voice Best Books 12/10/2008 pg. 44
New York Times Book Review 12/14/2008 pg. 9
Booklist Editors Choice/Adult 01/01/2009 pg. 11
New York Review of Books 03/12/2009 pg. 35
Publishers Weekly Best Books 03/23/2009 pg. 19
LJ Best Books of Year 12/01/2008 pg. 64