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Title: Firebrand

Author: Aaron Barnhart

Narrator: Aaron Barnhart

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-17-16

Publisher: Quindaro Press

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

In 1855 the westward expansion of slavery was all but assured. Pro-slavery forces had swarmed the newly-opened territory of Kansas and packed its legislature. They had the support of all three branches of the federal government and the Army. Yet within two years, a ragtag free-state militia, led by a wild-eyed crusader named John Brown, scored a series of tactical victories that helped turn the tide in Kansas - while putting America on the path to civil war.

Of all the men in Brown's army, one stands out: the young Jewish immigrant August Bondi, a freedom fighter since the age of 14. With a scrupulous eye toward history, author Aaron Barnhart brings this remarkable story to life and shows how a young man's conscience, like John Brown's broadsword, can cut both ways.

From Vienna's barricades to bleeding Kansas to the Civil War, August Bondi was continuously engaged in the struggle for freedom for half of his young adult life. As an old man, he wrote down what he remembered, and author Aaron Barnhart closely followed Bondi's autobiography in writing Firebrand. Barnhart also drew upon the 1958 novel Border Hawk: August Bondi, by children's author Lloyd Alexander (winner of the Newbery Medal and National Book Award), to bring Bondi's story back to life.

The story begins in 1848. The Bondi family is leaving for a better life in America. But 15-year-old Anschl doesn't want to go. He's found his life's purpose in Vienna, fighting on the barricades against a tyrant king. In America, Anschl tries to put his past behind him, changing his name to August and seeking adventure aboard a Texas riverboat. But there is a new tyranny in his adopted land called slavery, and its presence all around him rekindles the fire in the young freedom fighter. It leads him to Kansas Territory and the adventure of his life alongside the notorious abolitionist John Brown.

Members Reviews:

Very good read

An excellent YA novel by a Civil War expert.

A fresh perspective on Civil War fiction

August Bondi, a native Austrian who immigrated to the US in the mid 1800s, is the star of the new novel Firebrand by Aaron Barnhart. Firebrand is a fictionalized biography of the real August Bondi, an abolitionist who fought with John Brown during the Bleeding Kansas conflict. Barnhart's novel is based on Bondi's own autobiography, and is a modern rewrite of Lloyd Alexander's 1958 book August Bondi: Border Hawk.

Firebrand follows Bondi from Vienna, where he was involved in student protests against the outrages of the Austrian Empire, to the new world of New Orleans and Saint Louis. As he grows older, Bondi works as a river boatman and a successful shop owner, but his life is always shadowed by the suffering and injustice of slavery. When the political tensions between the North and South heat up, Bondi joins several like-minded Kansas settlers, including the notorious John Brown, to prevent the spread of slavery to Kansas, America's newest frontier. But with tempers at the breaking point, Bondi wonders what price he will pay to oppose the powerful slaveowners, and whether some of his new friends are taking their fight too far.

Barnhart's prose is simple and easy to absorb, making Bondi's story accessible to younger generations. As Firebrand covers decades of history in a short 168 pages, there is rarely a dull moment in Barnhart's new book.