ONYX Pages’s Reviews > The Water Dancer > Status Update

Stunning! I loved this book so much! There is a surmount-ish part that blew me away.

Isn’t it, though? I loved Joe Morton’s narration and took so much pleasure in the lusciousness of the language itself, and all it contained.

What I took away from this book was the historic themes that form its background--the dwindling slave economy on the old coastal plantation states, the surging appetites for enslaved people in the booming economy of the opening Southwestern States, the bull market for new enslaved bodies to feed the Southwestern state & their destruction of stable slave families of the coastal states to feed it, the desire for freedom among the enslaved & the boldness of some to run for it & incorporation of the Gulah/Geechee myths of flying away across the waters to Africa. This story personifies a lot of Black history & traditions. Enjoy.