Sudhir Hazareesingh’s Black Spartacus is a thorough and enthralling history of Toussaint Louverture, the one-time enslaved man who led the successful slave revolt in Haiti, then went on to lead the island nation. The book has been shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, Britain’s leading nonfiction literary award.
Also on this week’s episode:
A Place at the Table is a middle-grade book that tracks Sara, a Pakistani American, and Elizabeth, a white Jewish girl with an English mother. These two 6th graders end up in the same South Asian cooking class. The story is told in alternating viewpoints, and explores various challenges faced by immigrant and first-generation families. As they learn to cook together, they develop a friendship that is sometimes uneasy but in the end, warm and loving.