{"id":56100,"date":"2018-04-01T02:33:02","date_gmt":"2018-04-01T02:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56100"},"modified":"2018-04-01T02:33:02","modified_gmt":"2018-04-01T02:33:02","slug":"how-to-survive-in-a-world-that-doesnt-want-you-catherine-johnsons-curious-tale-of-the-lady-caraboo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=56100","title":{"rendered":"How to Survive in a World that Doesn\u2019t Want You: Catherine Johnson\u2019s Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to Survive in a World that Doesn\u2019t Want You: Catherine Johnson\u2019s <\/strong><\/em>Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

theracetoread: Children\u2019s Literature and Issues of Race<\/a>
\n2015-10-30<\/p>\n

Karen Sands-O\u2019Connor<\/strong><\/a>, Professor
\nEnglish Department
\nBuffalo State, The State University of New York, Buffalo, New York<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\n“Princess Caraboo” From an engraving by Henry Meyer, after a picture by Edward Bird<\/a>[1]<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

If you Google \u201cCaraboo\u201d sometime, one of the sites that comes up is a hypertext edition of an 1817 account of the life of Mary Wilcocks Baker<\/a>, also known as the Princess Caraboo (http:\/\/www.resologist.net\/carabooa.htm#N_13_<\/a>). The mysterious editor of the site (he goes by Mr. X) begins the hypertext with a stern condemnation of the \u201cromantic fictions\u201d that modern versions of Caraboo\u2019s story have presented; and the 1817 account itself acts as a general warning to kind-hearted ladies who take in foreign-looking women. The 1817 version, by John Matthew Gutch<\/a>, cannot help but admire Mary Wilcocks Baker\u2019s skill at survival and ability to escape detection for so long. At one point he writes, \u201cCervantes<\/a> himself could not have expected the realization of so fine a scene\u201d (18). Mr. X, whose other interests include lake monsters in Canada<\/a>, cannot share in Mr. Gutch\u2019s admiration; he wants to unmask Caraboo as an \u201cimposter\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is a copy of Mr. E. Bird\u2019s<\/a> portrait of \u201cCaraboo\u201d in the clothing that she made as part of her \u201cnative\u201d costume. An engraving of this portrait was inserted into John Matthew Gutch\u2019s version of Caraboo\u2019s story, and it is also mentioned in Johnson\u2019s version<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Mr. X, the reasons why this young woman would have taken on a new identity are irrelevant. To imagine that criminals have honorable motives is nothing more than romantic fiction. But Mr. X\u2014who, interestingly, has himself taken on an alternate identity\u2014 has never, if we can take him at \u201cface\u201d value, been a woman. Catherine Johnson<\/a>, in her recent novel for the young adult audience, The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo<\/em><\/a>, clearly does know what it is like to be a woman, and she shows in her eponymous character a vulnerable, poor, mixed race girl in Britain\u2019s<\/a> early 19th century who rises above the situation in which she finds herself to not only survive, but thrive…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catherine Johnson, in her recent novel for the young adult audience, The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo, clearly does know what it is like to be a woman, and she shows in her eponymous character a vulnerable, poor, mixed race girl in Britain\u2019s early 19th century who rises above the situation in which she finds herself to not only survive, but thrive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,459,8,10,25],"tags":[21768,28326,568,28325,20883,20882],"class_list":["post-56100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-history","category-media-archive","category-uk","category-women","tag-catherine-johnson","tag-john-matthew-gutch","tag-karen-sands-oconnor","tag-mary-wilcocks-baker","tag-theracetoread","tag-theracetoread-childrens-literature-and-issues-of-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56101,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56100\/revisions\/56101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}