My Name Is Phillis WheatleyMy Name Is Phillis Wheatley

Born by the edge of the great African desert, seven-year-old Penda Wane is learning to be a griot -- a praise-singer and poet. But when slave traders destroy her town, her long journey across the sea begings. Too weak to stand, she is left to die on the Boston wharf. When she is finally purchased, she is renamed Phillis, after the ship that carried her as cargo, and Wheatley because she is her mistress's property. Astonished at the speed at which Phillis learns English, Susanna Wheatley teaches Phillis Bible history, poety and classical literature. Soon far more learned than Susanna, Phillis begins to write her own poems. Everyone agrees the poems are very good, but why publish the verses of a slave? And can Phillis prove she really wrote them?