Core Collections
3
Everett, Percival 
«
James: A Novel. Percival Everett. Doubleday 2024. 320 p. 
ISBN 9780385550369 
Grades: Adult 
1. Finn, Huckleberry (Fictitious character) 2. African American men 3. Enslaved
people 4. Freedom seekers 5. Race relations 6. Male friendship 7. Fathers 
and sons 8. Abusive men 9. Runaway children 10. Fugitives 11. Interracial 
friendship 12. North American people 13. American people 14. Courage 
15. Mississippi River 16. Missouri 17. Antebellum America (1820-1861)
18. Literary fiction 19. Historical fiction 20. African American fiction 21. Adaptations,
retellings, and spin-offs 22. Book club best bets 
LC 2023012817 
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2025; BCALA Literary Award for Fiction, 2025; 
National Book Award for Fiction, 2024; LibraryReads Favorites, 2024; Kirkus 
Prize for Fiction, 2024;AndrewCarnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, 2025; 
British Book Award for Fiction of the Year, 2025; BCALA Youth Literary Award 
for Fiction, 2025; Zora Award: Fiction, 2025; Shortlisted for the International 
Dublin Literary Award, 2025; National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction 
finalist, 2024; Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, 2024. 
In this critically acclaimed retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry 
Finn, readers get the viewpoint of Jim, an enslaved man in danger of being 
sold who escapes with young Huck on a raft down the Mississippi River while 
longing for his enslaved wife and child. Read-alikes: My Jim by Nancy Rawles; 
the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead; Wild and Distant Seas by Tara 
Karr Roberts. 
“Everett, author of The Trees and Erasure, has written an even richer and 
penetrating Adventures than Twain’s already rich masterpiece. It will fly off library 
shelves.” —Library Journal
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