A young slave boy is named and numbered 47 on a nineteenth-century Georgia plantation and encounters the brutality and injustice of the system of slavery.

47 meets a strange being named Tall John who appears to be another slave boy - a runaway. But as 47 comes to realise, John is an extraterrestrial visitor who believes that his destiny is intertwined with the young slave's.

Tall John is a science fiction creation but he is also a reinterpretation of High John the Conqueror - a character taken from old slave myths about a spirit come from Africa to confound the slave masters and (ultimately) to free all slaves.

Number 47, a fourteen-year-old slave boy growing up under the watchful eye of a brutal master in 1832, meets the mysterious Tall John, who introduces him to a magical science and also teaches him the meaning of freedom.

About the Author
Walter Mosley is the bestselling author of Little Scarlet, Fear Itself, and Bad Boy Brawly Brown; the acclaimed Easy Rawlins series of mysteries; and other works of fiction and nonfiction. This is his first book for young adults.

Reviews
This thought-provoking, genre-bending account of one slave's emancipation makkes for harrowing reading...Equal parts history and tall tale, this engaging story related by an endearing narrator is so full of dramatic tension tha few readers will realise they're learing something, too * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY *



Book Information
ISBN 9780316016353
Author Walter Mosley
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint Little, Brown & Company
Publisher Little, Brown & Company
Weight(grams) 184g
Dimensions(mm) 189mm * 130mm * 17mm