Nettie's Trip South - Hardcover

Turner, Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0027892409 ISBN 13: 9780027892406

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1987

Synopsis

As Nettie writes to her friend Addie about her trip from Albany, New York, to Richmond, Virginia, she remembers all the things she saw and heard in that pre-Civil War South. She remembers the sweet cedar smell in the air -- but she also remembers Tabitha, the black slave in her hotel who has no last name. She remembers seeing the slave quarters at a nearby plantation, with the heaps of rags in the corners for beds. But most of all she remembers the slave auction, where a woman is sold "like a sack of flour"; and she thinks about what their lives would be like, if she and Addie were slaves...
Based on the real diary of the author's great-grandmother, this is a powerful and deeply moving account of one girl's reaction to slavery in the South. Once read and seen through the eyes of master illustrator Ronald Himler, it is not soon forgotten.

About this title

About the Author:

Ann Turner is an award-winning screenwriter and director, avid reader, and history lover. She is drawn to salt-sprayed coasts, luminous landscapes, and the people who inhabit them all over the world. She is a passion­ate gardener. Her films include the historical feature Celia, starring Rebecca Smart—which Time Out listed as one of the fifty greatest direc­torial debuts of all time; Hammers Over the Anvil, starring Russell Crowe and Charlotte Rampling; and the psychological thriller Irresistible starring Susan Sarandon, Sam Neill, and Emily Blunt. Ann has lectured in film at the Victorian College of the Arts. Returning to her first love, the written word, in her debut novel The Lost Swimmer, Ann explores themes of love, trust, and the dark side of relationships. Her second novel, Out of the Ice, a mystery thriller set in Antarctica, was published to great acclaim in Australia and will be available in the United States in 2018. Ann was born in Adelaide and lives in Victoria. Visit Ann’s website at AnnTurnerAuthor.com.

Ron Himler lives in Tucson, Arizona. An interest in American Indian culture first brought Mr. Himler to the southwest, and his work often features western subjects as well as historical themes. His paintings are frequently exhibited in galleries in the southwest. Ron Himler has illustrated more than seventy-five children’s books.

From Publishers Weekly:

Turner's Dakota Dugout and Third Girl from the Left proved her ability to write of the settlers' hard lives on the Plains. This time she presents, in the form of a sparely written, evocative letter to a friend, a young girl's impressions of the South and her first encounter with slavery. Traveling with her sister and journalist brother, Nettie learns that, according to the Constitution, slaves are only 3/5 people. She looks to see what comprises the 2/5 they are missing. And she meets Tabitha, who only has that one name, "Like a cat or a dog." She throws up when she sees two black children who have to be forcefully separated when they are auctioned off to different owners. Nettie is changed when she returns home. The historical distance makes this fact-based account no less heart-wrenching and realistic. Himler's black-and-white pencil drawings are somber, yet in those scenes of past sorrows, there are glimpses of hope. Ages 6-10.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0027892409
• ISBN 13: 9780027892406
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Himler Ronald