Book Review: Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen

Reviewed by Miriam Stone, Learning Resource and Access Specialist

You won’t find this book on the current bestseller list, or any current list for that matter. It isn’t current – it is timeless and it is true and it hurts to read it. That’s why it needs to be read.

I happened upon it while searching the young adult section of the library one day attempting to help a student find a different book. I have no idea what made me take it from the shelf; maybe it was curiosity about the title.

We don’t have a very large juvenile/young adult collection and I never spend any time there if I don’t have a reason. I knew that Gary Paulsen was an award winning author of books for young adults, but I never read one as a young adult or gave any thought to him when I became an older adult.

This is a story about slavery, a story about the grueling hour by hour existence of human beings when they are subjected to the will of fellow human beings. It was published in 1993 and consists of only 92 pages. In those pages, the true stories of four people are shared and as their lives intertwine, the reader will find himself invested in their pain, their joy, and their tenuous grasp on a better future.

There is Sarny, a twelve year old black slave, and Mammy, an old black woman assigned the task of raising Sarny. Sarny’s birth mother, by the act of giving birth, had demonstrated her ability to breed and was sold for that purpose at an auction when Sarny was four. There is Nightjohn, a slave whose body bears so many scars that a whip would be hard pressed to find any space on him that could inflict a new scar. 

Nightjohn had once escaped to freedom, but driven by a single-minded purpose, he came back to an unbearable existence. He is purchased by a man named Waller, our fourth character, who forces those he owns to call him Master Waller. His title is significantly different when he is not within earshot of those he torments; it more resembles something like “wallow” followed by a description of that in which his slaves wish for him to slog about.

Don’t be fooled by the brevity of this book or the audience to whom it is directed. This book paints a vivid, ugly picture of the bloody violence, degradation, filth, starvation and assault of people perpetrated by other people.

It takes far less than an hour to read, but once read, its message must remain in our heads and our hearts forever. Every generation believes that it has the power to end racism, and every generation does. But there are no shortcuts. It begins at the beginning.

“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see.” Winston Churchill