Sign-In
Cart
The Amazing Adventures of Bentley Rogers McGee
Paperback
General Juvenile FictionHistory
Publisher Price: $12.99
Publisher: Spence Heritage Press LLC
Published: Jun 29 2026
Pages: 80
Weight: 0.23
Height: 0.17 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
The history books told him what happened. The watch showed him the truth.
Bentley Rogers McGee has grown up in a house where history is dinner-table conversation. His father is an HBCU history professor. His mother teaches AP U.S. History. Bentley can tell you exactly why the Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free anyone the day it was signed, and he can do it before breakfast.
But on the morning of his thirteenth birthday, his grandmother Loretta places an old brass pocket watch in his hands - and everything Bentley thought he knew becomes something he can feel.
Now Bentley can travel back to the moments that shaped a nation. He lands in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865 - Juneteenth - and stands beside a man named Samuel as freedom is announced, late, hard-won, and more complicated than any textbook dared explain. He witnesses the joy. He witnesses the fear underneath the joy. He witnesses the enormous, terrifying question that comes after the word free: now what?
Bentley is a Witness. He cannot change what happened. But he can carry it forward.
Back in the present, his friend Zora writes everything down in a notebook she calls Things Bentley Saw That History Forgot, while his friend Marcus asks the question that changes everything: Carry it forward where? The answer leads them from their neighborhood to a Houston church to a sixty-year-old box in a Galveston archive - and to a document that has been waiting for them since 1865.
The Last Lash and the First Freedom is the first book in The Amazing Adventures of Bentley Rogers McGee - a five-book series that takes one boy across the moments that made America, and asks what it means to truly witness history rather than simply remember it.
Also from
Spence
Administrative Barriers to Foreign Investment: Reducing Red Tape in Africa Volume 2848
Emery, James J.
Spence
Paperback
Also in
History
I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941 (I Survived Graphic Novel #14): Volume 14
Tarshis, Lauren
Paperback
I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941 (I Survived Graphic Novel #14): Volume 14
Tarshis, Lauren
Hardcover
Mystery in Rocky Mountain National Park: A Mystery Adventure in the National Parks
Johnson, Aaron
Paperback
I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 (I Survived Graphic Novel #8): Volume 8
Tarshis, Lauren
Paperback
I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011 (I Survived Graphic Novel #12): Volume 12
Tarshis, Lauren
Paperback
I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79 (I Survived Graphic Novel #10): Volume 10
Tarshis, Lauren
Paperback
I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919 (I Survived Graphic Novel #11): Volume 11
Tarshis, Lauren
Paperback
Discovery in Great Sand Dunes National Park: A Mystery Adventure in the National Parks
Johnson, Aaron
Paperback
The Circus Ship: (A Rhyming Adventure of Circus Animals Finding a New Home - For Preschoolers, Kindergarteners, and 1st-3rd Graders Ages 4-8)
Van Dusen, Chris
Hardcover
The Secret Garden: Special Edition with Tasha Tudor Art and Bonus Materials
Burnett, Frances Hodgson
Paperback
Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear (Caldecott Medal Winner)
Mattick, Lindsay
Hardcover
Asian Folktales for Children: Traditional Tales from Japan, Korea, China, India, the Philippines and Other Asian Lands
Romulo, Liana
Conger, David
Hardcover
I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011 (I Survived Graphic Novel #12): Volume 12
Tarshis, Lauren
Hardcover