Good Fortune [Hardcover]

Noni Carter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2010

Ayanna Bahati lives in a small African village when she is brutally kidnapped, along with her mother and brother, and forced onto a slave ship to America. As Ayanna, renamed Anna, rises from the cotton fields to the master’s house, she finds the familial love she’s been yearning for—but she is also faced with more threats to her survival. Risking everything to escape the plantation, Anna makes it to the North and to freedom, eventually settling in the free black community of Hadson, Ohio, and educating herself to become a teacher. A moving account from a compelling new storyteller.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—Sarah, Anna, and Ayanna are the names used by one person over the course of her life. First she is Sarah, a slave on a plantation in Tennessee. Her days are full of endless labor, humiliation, and the threat of rape. She struggles to understand the meaning of freedom and to educate herself despite the danger. After witnessing a brutal whipping, she flees north to freedom. Barely surviving the harrowing journey, Sarah and her adopted brother arrive in Ohio, only to find that freedom is not as sweet as she had hoped. She changes her name to Anna and begins a new life, but she worries about loved ones left behind and is embittered by the severe restrictions and discrimination faced by free blacks. One of the more effective literary devices is how Anna's narration gradually shifts from slave patois to more refined speech as her education progresses. Ayanna was her name as a child in Africa, remembered in nightmares, where the memories of the murder of her mother, the horrifying ocean passage in the belly of a slave ship, and being separated from her brother on the auction block haunt her. The transitions between the dreams and waking life are occasionally jarring, but on the whole the narrative flows smoothly and is well paced. An author's note about fact and fiction in the book adds weight to the historical information included.—Caroline Tesauro, Radford Public Library, VA
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

In the stirring narrative of young Sarah on a Tennessee plantation in the early nineteenth century, this lengthy debut novel tells an American slavery story, weaving together the brutal labor and threats of sexual assault with Sarah’s memories of capture in Africa. When she escapes with her “brother” Daniel, she leaves behind her tender, adoptive mother and John, the young man she loves, and she discovers that escape does not mean freedom. As they reach Ohio, Sarah, now 14, dreams of education, but she encounters vicious prejudice, including the n-word (“You have no idea what education is, and if you did, you wouldn’t know what to do with it”). She does know what education is, of course, and later she even establishes a school. With many spelled-out messages, Carter’s novel tries to fold in too much for one story, and in the long afterword, which distinguishes fact from fiction, she acknowledges plot contrivances. Despite these shortfalls, though, the harsh, realistic history will captivate readers, as will the brave young girl’s struggle and triumph. Grades 8-11. --Hazel Rochman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers; 1 edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416984801
• ISBN-13: 978-1416984801
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,237,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, insightful, moving and inspiring., February 4, 2010

By 

Kathy L. Nicholas (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Good Fortune (Hardcover)

Wow! An incredibly powerful story, wonderfully written. Noni Carter is clearly wise beyond her years. It is my greatest hope that this book reach millions of readers.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rutgers University Project on Economics and Children, December 5, 2010

By 

Yana V. Rodgers "econkids.rutgers.edu" (New Brunswick, NJ) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Good Fortune (Hardcover)

Brutally stolen from her African homeland at the age of four and sold into slavery on a cotton plantation in Tennessee, Ayanna (Anna) Bahati could not find relief from the recurrent nightmares of her abduction. As soon as she was old enough, Anna began toiling endless days of hard physical labor working the cotton fields. This grueling schedule changed somewhat when Anna was about fourteen and Aunt Mary, the mother figure who cared for her on the plantation, convinced the Missus to allow Anna to spend some of the day performing housework and watching the children.

Although slaves were forbidden to get an education, Anna used her work with the children as an opportunity to learn how to read and write, which in turn fortified her desire to escape to freedom. Escape she did, under traumatic circumstances that left the young man she loved behind. With intense determination and some assistance from strangers, Anna found her way to a free black community in Ohio. Although she found a way to make a living, Anna soon realized that entrenched segregation and hostility against blacks meant that injustices such as the lack of education could continue, even in a free state. Anna would need to push the boundaries, at the risk of grave danger, to live the life of freedom she had yearned.

Carefully researched, this debut novel from Noni Carter provides readers with a stark depiction of the abhorrent conditions that enslaved Africans endured during their passage across the ocean and their forced labor on American plantations. Readers will be drawn to the courage and spirit of the lead character, a young woman who found inspiration from the written word and from the grace of people she knew she could trust.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A touching story, October 27, 2010

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Good Fortune (Hardcover)

"I am [...] and I really enjoyed this book. I started reading this book on a Monday night and finished before dinner on Tuesday. My mom had to tell me to put it away so I could finish my schoolwork (I'm homeschooled).
I liked Sarah and Mary's courage and how Sarah didn't let her situation get to her. I really liked how she wasn't a slave in her own eyes. I liked her courage to run away with her brother and Tucker. I'm glad of what she accomplished. It was an encouraging book."