45. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Washington Black is a slave child on a Barbados plantation until his master’s brother shows up one day and takes him away to help with creating what he calls a cloud cutter (i.e. hot air balloon). After a death on the plantation that makes it seem that Washington was possibly involved the two of them take off in the cloud cutter leading to adventures across the globe.
I read this book for one of my book clubs and we had a really great discussion about it. I can also see how it would make an excellent book to dissect in an English class, but I can’t say that I really enjoyed reading it. I found it to be a bit dull and thought some of the things were a little bit too fantastical. I give it a 6 out of 10.