WORTHY

What makes someone worthy?

Newbery Honor–winning author Wang answers that question with her biography of Joseph Pierce, a Chinese man who was forced to prove his worth over and over. Born in southern China in 1840 (his real name and exact place of birth have since been lost to history), he was sold into slavery at age 10 to an American ship captain named Amos Peck and loaded onto a vessel, along with 200 other prisoners, bound for the sugar plantations of Cuba. But after “Joe,” as he was named, proved himself useful as a cabin boy, Captain Peck brought him home to Connecticut; there, he lived with the Peck family, who renamed him Joseph Pierce. Facing racism over the years, he enlisted in the Union Army (as the only Chinese soldier in his regiment), rose to the rank of corporal, became an American citizen, married a white woman, and had three children. To remain safe as white Americans mounted attacks on Chinese residents after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, he pretended to be Japanese. The accumulation of these demeaning injustices—even after all he had accomplished—will push readers to ask a new question: Was America worthy of Joseph? Vang’s handsomely rendered acrylic paintings offer solemnly realistic depictions of Joseph’s life, while Wang’s text combines artfully crafted prose and historical quotes to juxtapose the dignity of the individual against the racism of his era.

A thought-provoking account of courage and integrity in the face of discrimination.