Nightjohn

Paulsen, Gary. 1993. Nightjohn. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 0385308388.

The freedom learning to read gives a mind was prevented in the slavery days of the United States. The white slave-owners endeavor to suppress every kind of freedom, from mental (limiting learning), physical (forcing hard labor and pitiful living conditions), and emotional (treating the slaves as subhuman), but the indomitable spirit of Nightjohn perseveres. He secretly teaches Sarny, whose voice narrates the novel, to read. While ultimately uplifting, the vicious acts Sarny must witness and endure belie the ruinous effects of slavery. Paulsen sets the suffocating tone through dialect and colloquialisms, leaving just enough air to stir the reader.