Gabriel King believes he was born chicken. He's afraid of spiders, corpses, loose cows, and just about everything related to the fifth grade. If it's a choice between raduating or staying in the fourth grade forever, he's going to stay put ─ only his best friend Frita Wilson won't hear of it.

"Gabe," says Frita, "we gotta do something about you." When Frita makes up her mind she's like a locomotive - there's no stopping her. "First you're going to make a list.
Write down everything you're afraid of."

Gabe's list is a lot longer than he'd like Frita to know. Plus, he can't quite figure out how tackling his fears will make him brave. Surely jumping off the rope swing over the catfish pond can only lead to certain death...But maybe Frita knows what she's doing. It turns out she's got her own list, and while she's watching Gabe tackle each of his fears, she's avoiding the fear that scares her the most.

With wisdom and clarity, K. L. Going explores the nature of fear in what should be an idyllic summer for two friends from different backgrounds. For them, living in a small town in Georgia with an active Ku Klux Klan, the summer of 1976 is a momentous one.

Praise for the Audio edition

From AudioFile

Adults should prepare to listen to this marvelous book with as much fascination as older children and young adults. Rob Keefe manages to embody a fifth-grade white boy and black girl, their parents, the girl's tough older brother, and some very scary sixth-grade and adult Ku Klux Clan members.

He does all this without ever overdoing the accents or speech patterns; it's a subtle and fine performance of a very fine book. Gabriel King of the title is a fourth-grader determined not to enter fifth grade, for it will put him within striking distance of those awful sixth-graders. His best friend, Frita, decides to help Gabe face his fears and, in the process, triumphs over her own. We all learn that one can be scared and brave at the same time. A.C.S.

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award
© AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

"Fear is a familiar spoiler in the life of every child, but K. L. Going knows that perfect love casts out fear, and thanks to Gabriel King, young readers will know it, too. In a post 9/11 world, this is an especially timely tale, told well."

- Nikki Grimes, author of Bronx Masquerade
Winner of the 2003 Coretta Scott King Author Award

"Full of humanity and humor, this well-paced novel offers a dollop of
history with its setting in rural Georgia at the moment local boy Jimmy
Carter's presidential bid is gaining momentum. The villains' credibility
makes them scary, and both Gabe and Frita's refreshingly functional families are
exquisitely drawn..."

- Starred review of The Liberation of Gabriel King from
Publisher's Weekly