The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. I: The Pox Party
“A brilliant novel of war and race and the madness of slavery, Octavian has stayed with me for years.” — John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
Candlewick Press (2006)
ISBN: 9780763636791
Awards
National Book Award Winner ● Michael L. Printz Honor ● Boston Globe – Horn Book Winner, Fiction Category ● Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist ● New York Times Notable Books of the Year ● Parade Magazine’s 222 Greatest Books of All Time ● YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults ● Kansas City Star – Best 100 Books of the Year ● Booklist 50 Best YA Books of All Time ● New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age ● Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding ● Book Awards, Honorable Mention ● Book Sense Book of the Year Honor Book ● Book Sense Children’s Pick Top Ten ● Inky Awards Longlist ● Booklist Editors’ Choice: Books for Youth ● Booklist Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth ● Booklist Top 10 Black History Books for Youth ● Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books - Bulletin Blue Ribbons ● Horn Book Fanfare ● Kirkus Reviews Editors’ Choice ● Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year ● Publishers Weekly Cuffie Award ● School Library Journal Best Books of the Year ● Amazon.com Best Books of the Year ● Junior Library Guild Selection ● Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices List ● Julia Ward Howe Young Readers Award (Massachusetts) ● Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award
It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother -- a princess in exile from a faraway land -- are the only persons in their household assigned names. As the boy's regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the house scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments -- and his own chilling role in them. M. T. Anderson's extraordinary, National Book Award-winning novel reimagines the past as an eerie place that has startling and urgent resonance for readers today.
Reviews
“A brilliant novel of war and race and the madness of slavery, Octavian has stayed with me for years.” — John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
“Imaginative and important.” — The Wall Street Journal
“Anderson’s imaginative and highly intelligent exploration of the horrors of human experimentation and the ambiguous history of America’s origins will leave readers impatient for the promised sequel.” — The New York Times Book Review
“A serious look at Boston, pre-Revolution. It's layered, it's full of historic reference, and it's about slavery and equal rights.” — Boston Globe
“Exhilarating.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Rendered in erudite English of the time, the sinister plot lays bare the irony of violence used to pursue freedoms and preserve slavery." "Presents a unique vision of this nation's infancy, one to which young-adult readers with sophisticated tastes are likely to respond with enthusiasm.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“A rare achievement.” — Toronto Globe and Mail
“Gripping, thought-provoking and occasionally horrifying. . . . This is first-class literature, a deserved winner of this year's National Book Award for young readers.” — Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Historically grounded, emotionally and philosophically complex, Octavian Nothing will compel readers to think differently about history and its echoes in the contemporary world.” — Book Page
★ “The story’s scope is immense, in both its technical challenges and underlying intellectual and moral questions. . . . Readers will marvel at Anderson’s ability to maintain this high-wire act of elegant, archaic language and shifting voices.” — Booklist, starred review
★ “Octavian's narration...quickly draws readers into its almost musical flow, and the relentless action and plot turns are powerful motivators.” — The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review
★ “A historical novel of prodigious scope, power and insight. . . . This is the Revolutionary War seen at its intersection with slavery through a disturbingly original lens.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
★ “Fascinating and eye-opening. . . .This powerful novel will resonate with contemporary readers.” — School Library Journal, starred review
“Anderson once again shows the breadth of his talents with this stunningly well-researched novel.” — Publishers Weekly
“A brilliantly complex interrogation of our basic American assumptions. Anderson has created an alternative narrative of our national mythology, one that fascinates, appalls, condemns – and enthralls.” — The Horn Book
“A brilliant, passionate book that is flat-out unforgettable, a virtuoso exercise in voice that in no way distances the reader from the narrator and an experience of deeply felt empathy that his slowly emerging understanding of the nature of his existence engenders.” — Booklist, Michael Cart, “Carte Blanche
“This is historical fiction that reads like a horror novel and a mystery at the same time.” — Portsmouth Herald
“[A] provocative, disturbing and inventive tale of the shameless human bondage that was so integral a part of the founding of this nation.” — Buffalo News
“The most daring and demanding of the fall books. . . . Even more extraordinary is Anderson’s powerful, nuanced revelation of the deep hypocrisies, the pernicious relationship between ‘rational’ inquiry and cruelty; political expediency and the god of ‘reason’; ideas of democracy and true ‘Observation’ of evidence.” — Toronto Star
“The history of the American Revolution is presented against the backdrop of slavery, racism, human rights violations, and the ravages of war.” — Christian Science Monitor
“Historical fiction capable of shaking our founding mythology.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer
“An unusual exploration of a segment of American history that probably didn’t make it into your high school textbook.” — Philadelphia Inquirer
Interviews
Publishers Weekly, “Children's Bookshelf Talks With M.T. Anderson” (October 4, 2006)
Publishers Weekly, “On My Nightstand: M.T. Anderson's Nighttime Reading” (October 6, 2011)
NPR’s Novel Ideas Series, “M.T. Anderson: Eats Broccoli, Paces and Hums” (November 24, 2006)
NPR’s News & Notes, “Author M.T. Anderson on 'Octavian Nothing'” (January 29, 2007)