Description
George Washington Carver was once born a slave in Missouri about 1864 and was once raised by the childless white couple who had owned his mother. In 1877 he left home on the lookout for an education, in the end earning a master’s degree. In 1896, Booker T. Washington invited Carver to start out the rural department on the all-black-staffed Tuskegee Institute, where he spent the remainder of his life in search of solutions to the poverty among landless black farmers by developing new uses for soil-replenishing crops such as peanuts, cowpeas, and sweet potatoes. Carver’s achievements as a botanist and inventor were balanced by his gifts as a painter, musician, and teacher. This Newbery Honor Book and Coretta Scott King Creator Honor Book by Marilyn Nelson supplies a compelling and revealing portrait of Carver’s complex, richly interior, profoundly devout life.