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Caleb's Crossing
Paperback, 318 pages, Penguin Group USA, List Price: $16 | purchase
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Book Summary
Forging a deep friendship with a Wampanoag chieftain's son on the Great Harbor settlement where her minister father is working to convert the tribe, Bethia follows her friend through his Ivy League education and his efforts to bridge cultures among the colonial elite.
Awards and Recognition
4 weeks on NPR Paperback Fiction Bestseller List
22 weeks on NPR Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List
Genres:
This book is about:
- Indian scholars,
- Indian college graduates,
- ca. 1646-1666,
- Cheeshahteaumuck, Caleb,
- Wampanoag Indians,
- Martha's Vineyard,
- Massachusetts,
- Historical fiction,
- Biographical fiction,
- United States,
- Fiction
NPR stories about Caleb's Crossing
Best Books Of 2011
A Passion For The Past: 2011's Best Historical Fiction
I am astonished and chagrined that I had not read any of Geraldine Brooks' novels until Caleb's Crossing. She takes a known historical figure — Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the first Native American to attend Harvard University — and from that single thread weaves a spellbinding tapestry depicting the world of the Puritans and the Wopanaak in 17th century Massachusetts. It is a tragic clash of cultures and gods, narrated by Bethia Mayfield, a minister's daughter who befriends Caleb.... more
—Sharon Penman
Best Books Of 2011
Conversation Starters: 2011's Top 5 Book Club Picks
In Caleb's Crossing, Geraldine Brooks has created a lovely heroine in Bethia Mayfield, a young girl living on Martha's Vineyard in colonial times. Bethia longs to break free of the restrictions of her strict Puritan community. Smarter than her older brother, who is destined to get the education she wants and deserves, Bethia finds comfort in exploring the wilds of the island with a young Native American named Caleb. It is a secret friendship and remains so, even as the two end up in... more
Books
Review: Caleb's Crossing By Geraldine Brooks
May 3, 2011 Set in the 17th century on Martha's Vineyard, a new novel from Geraldine Brooks tells the tale of a Puritan family — and one daughter's relationship with the son of a Wampanoag chieftain who would become the first Native American to graduate from Harvard.
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