{"product_id":"the-amazing-adventures-of-bentley-spence-9798951472014","title":"The Amazing Adventures of Bentley Rogers McGee","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe history books told him what happened. The watch showed him the truth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBentley Rogers McGee has grown up in a house where history is dinner-table conversation. His father is an HBCU history professor. His mother teaches AP U.S. History. Bentley can tell you exactly why the Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free anyone the day it was signed, and he can do it before breakfast.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut on the morning of his thirteenth birthday, his grandmother Loretta places an old brass pocket watch in his hands - and everything Bentley thought he knew becomes something he can \u003cem\u003efeel\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow Bentley can travel back to the moments that shaped a nation. He lands in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865 - Juneteenth - and stands beside a man named Samuel as freedom is announced, late, hard-won, and more complicated than any textbook dared explain. He witnesses the joy. He witnesses the fear underneath the joy. He witnesses the enormous, terrifying question that comes after the word \u003cem\u003efree\u003c\/em\u003e: now what?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBentley is a Witness. He cannot change what happened. But he can carry it forward.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBack in the present, his friend Zora writes everything down in a notebook she calls \u003cem\u003eThings Bentley Saw That History Forgot\u003c\/em\u003e, while his friend Marcus asks the question that changes everything: \u003cem\u003eCarry it forward where?\u003c\/em\u003e The answer leads them from their neighborhood to a Houston church to a sixty-year-old box in a Galveston archive - and to a document that has been waiting for them since 1865.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Last Lash and the First Freedom\u003c\/em\u003e is the first book in The Amazing Adventures of Bentley Rogers McGee - a five-book series that takes one boy across the moments that made America, and asks what it means to truly witness history rather than simply remember it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Spence\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798951472014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Spence Heritage Press LLC\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/29\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 80\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.23lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.17d","brand":"Spence","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":49148637839615,"sku":"9798951472014","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-amazing-adventures-of-bentley-spence-9798951472014","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}