About the Author

WILLIAM HEATH has a PhD in American studies from Case Western Reserve University and has taught at Kenyon, Transylvania, Vassar, and the University of Seville. In 2007 he retired as a professor emeritus at Mount Saint Mary’s University, where The William Heath Award in creative writing is given annually. The Children Bob Moses Led (Milkweed Editions 1995) won the Hackney Literary Award for best novel, was nominated by the publisher for the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize, and nominated by Joyce Carol Oates for the Ainsfield-Wolf Award. In 2002 Time magazine online judged it one of the eleven best novels of the African American experience. Blacksnake’s Path: The True Adventures of William Wells (Heritage Books, 2008) was a History Book Club selection. Devil Dancer (Somondoco Press 2013) is a neo-noir novel set in Lexington, Kentucky. A work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest, will be published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 2015. The Walking Man (Icarcus Books 1994) is a selection of his poems. He has published essays on Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, William Styron, and Thomas Berger, among others. He and his wife Roser Caminals-Heath, a Catalan novelist, have lived in Frederick, Maryland since 1981. A study guide for The Children Bob Moses Led is available at newsouthbooks.com/bobmoses/bob_moses_study_guide.pdf.

Reviews

The large cast of characters gives voice to the complexity of the era's issues, and Heath's clear chronicle of this poignant moment in our nation's recent past is often compelling.
*Publishers Weekly*

Bob Moses was the kind of leader we sadly miss today, one of quiet, yet enormous moral strength: a genuine inspiration to the sometimes confused idealism of the young volunteers in the midst of a violent and passionate struggle. Perhaps now more than ever we need to remember the summer of 1964. This novel is wonderfully instructive, it has a great deal of moral energy, and it tells an important story sensitively, carefully, thoughtfully.
*author of Farewell to the South*

Good historical fiction tells a story while staying true to the facts. The best historical fiction does that while offering an analysis that is both subtle and true to the situation. William Heath manages to achieve all of this and more in his novel The Children Bob Moses Led: A Novel of Freedom Summer, a gripping novel for all age groups, from young adults to mature readers who may remember the summer of 1964. It is ideal for classroom use in both English and history classes, and the publisher has provided an online study guide to facilitate classroom use.
*American Book Review*

An emotional journey through a part of our history that will leave the reader shaken but enriched.
*Dorothy Cotton, Southern Christian Leadership Conference*

Heath has created a novel that holds true to the actual heroic events of Freedom Summer. The Children Bob Moses Led is an illuminating account of a period from our history that is too little known and too little understood.
*author of In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s*

The Children Bob Moses Led lives and breathes. Heath's book is important history, but it is also art.
*author of Seaview and Utah*

Heath presents an illuminating portrait of the time, fascinating for the smaller events he uncovers, chronicling the bravery of those who didn't capture the national spotlight. An absorbing look at one of America's darkest and most courageous moments.
*Kirkus Reviews*

The blend of fact and fiction is so brilliantly written, the reader is completely absorbed in the unfolding drama . . . . In a masterful manner, William Heath brings alive a disturbing piece of our history.
*Martha Smith, Small Press*

Engaging and suspenseful, this is contemporary fiction at its best ... Readers too young to remember Freedom Summer will find Bob Moses an enigmatic, admirable hero.
*Dayton Daily News*

The Children Bob Moses Led is an important and timely book, one that is being published at an extremely pivotal period in our national history. The reader will experience the raw courage, the personal discipline, and the reliance on transcendent values, whether philosophical or religious, that were at the basis of this historic period of transformation in Mississippi.
*Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom*