My Name’s Not Friday by Jon Walter review – a superb teen novel about slavery and religion

With his tremendous feel for character, Walter vividly captures the events that unfold on a Mississippi plantation during the American civil war

It isn’t often I’m left lost for words, but that’s the way I felt when I finished reading this superb YA novel. I thought making a list of its good and bad points might introduce some balance: but its virtues are many, and the only flaw I could come up with is so minor as to be hardly worth mentioning – I’m not keen on the title. In the end I realised I had only one option, so forgive me while I gush shamelessly.

Virtue number one: Jon Walter’s courage in tackling a subject such as slavery. The story is set in the deep south during the American civil war, most of the action taking place on a Mississippi plantation. It’s familiar territory, and therefore difficult to write about with any originality. But Walter has clearly done an enormous amount of research, and the result is a story that feels entirely new because it digs deep into the period to find the human truth behind the history.

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