Shad Book

...'At the top of another small mountain Shad looked down a vertical bluff into a large pool of water. Closer examination revealed no possible way off the bluff in either direction. Shad backtracked himself to a large oak tree and climbed it. He inched down a huge limb and leaped into another tree which reached the edge of the bluff. Praying for deep water, Shad leaped into the air over the pool.' Given an illegal education by a widowed Swedish immigrant in a savage land Shad, a slave boy, rises to be virtual master of a huge Plantation, until everything he knows and loves is sucked into the maelstrom of the Civil War. Chased by brutal slave catchers across a war torn and hostile South, Shad struggles to survive. Dreaming of returning to the beautiful Bekah and the ones he loves, Shad must face and conquer many challenges.