Staff Pick: Book of the Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma

Francis-Sharma, Lauren. Book of the Little Axe. First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020.

A gorgeously-written epic novel that follows Rosa Rendón’s journey in the early 19^th century from her family’s farm in Trinidad to her arrival in Crow Nation in the American West, Book of the Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma explores colonial power, race, love, family secrets, war, and memory. Francis-Sharma, the Assistant Director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, is a captivating storyteller, and as she reveals more about Rosa’s childhood in the Caribbean, and later, her life with her husband, a Crow chief, and her son Victor, who is coming of age and seeking answers to his life’s mysteries, what threads these characters together over several fraught decades in North American history are powerful, and timeless, questions of identity, belonging, and home.

Get it: 

Borrow Book of the Little Axe from the library.

Note: Limited User e-book. Borrow and download it for a limited time or print up to 100 pages of the book.