Geraldine Brooks has done it again with Caleb's Crossing. She is a dynamic writer and researcher. Her historical fiction stories make you ache for more. This time she goes from 1660 to 1715 at Martha's Vineyard and Harvard College. A twelve year old girl, Bethia Mayfield and a Native American Indian named Caleb meet in her homeland of Great Harbor which houses a small band of English Puritans. They forge a forbidden friendship and teach each other the ways of their people to each other. When tragedy strikes both families, Caleb and Bethia are sent away to school together. Bethia, to clean and care for the boys at Cambridge and Harvard and to pay the way for her brother to get a free education. Caleb who was tutored by Bethia's father attends Harvard with the colonial elite studying Latin and Greek. Both characters struggle to get their voices heard during this period of time. Women are not supposed to get formal educational training and Native Americans have to fight and accept christian culture and prejudice in order to gain a proper education for their future and their people. The outcome of these two characters and the people around them will have you thinking about them and their circumstances and our sordid past for years to cone. Caleb's Crossing is a reminder of our past and how history unfortunately repeats itself.
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