Jip, His Story

Jip, His Story is a 1996 children's book written by American novelist Katherine Paterson. Set in Vermont during the 1850s, it focuses on a 12-year-old orphan named Jip, who was abandoned as an infant and mistaken for a gypsy because of his skin color. Jip works at a poor farm where mentally ill residents are housed. Jip discovers that he is the part-black child of an escaped slave and that he has been claimed as the property of a slave-owning farmer.
"Jip, His Story" won the 1997 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. In 2005, the book was turned into a musical by Danny Duncan and Emily Klion and performed at The Marsh. This adaptation won the 2008 American Harmony Prize.