Octavian Nothing

This was our book club book for this month. Apparently it is a young adult fiction, but there were so many vocabulary words in it that I didn't know, I can't imagine how difficult it would be for kids to read. Anyway, it's written by M.T. Anderson. It's a historical fiction set at the time of the American Revolution in Boston.

Octavian Nothing is a slave that was bought by an academy of professors. Actually, his mom was bought and she was pregnant with him. He and is mom are treated like royalty and given a royal education as an experiment to see if black people can have the same intelligence as white given education. He doesn't even know he's a slave until he's 7 or so. The professors are very scientific in their approach to him, but since he doesn't know any better, he thinks this is normal. He even has to weigh his bowel movements!

Anyway, it was an interesting book, but a little slow moving for me. I generally enjoy historical fiction, but I just wasn't buying it from this author. I'm not really sure why. I think historical fiction requires a ton of research, and maybe he/she just didn't do enough. There was a part when the philosopher makes a comment that included the word "atom" and I noticed right away that atoms weren't even known about during that time period. I guess things like that bother me and then I don't enjoy the book. I'm too much like my mom in that way. Oh well!