The Price of Freedom: How One Town Stood Up to Slavery - Hardcover

Fradin, Dennis Brindell; Fradin, Judith Bloom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802721664 ISBN 13: 9780802721662

Publisher: Walker Childrens, 2013

Synopsis

When John Price took a chance at freedom by crossing the frozen Ohio river from Kentucky into Ohio one January night in 1856, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was fully enforced in every state of the union. But the townspeople of Oberlin, Ohio, believed there that all people deserved to be free, so Price started a new life in town-until a crew of slave-catchers arrived and apprehended him. When the residents of Oberlin heard of his capture, many of them banded together to demand his release in a dramatic showdown that risked their own freedom. Paired for the first time, highly acclaimed authors Dennis & Judith Fradin and Pura Belpré award-winning illustrator Eric Velasquez, provide readers with an inspiring tale of how one man's journey to freedom helped spark an abolitionist movement.

About this title

About the Author

DENNIS and JUDITH BLOOM FRADIN have published more than 150 books for children. They have won many awards, including the 2004 SCBWI Golden Kite Honor book award for The Power of One: Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine. Their most recent National Geographic title 5,000 Miles to Freedom: Ellen and William Craft's Flight from Slavery was named one of Chicago Public Library's Best Books of the Year, a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and received a Blue Ribbon from the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. Dennis is also the author of Duel, Let it Begin Here and The Signers: The 56 Stories Behind the Declaration of Independence, which won numerous awards, including an ALA Notable, an ABC Choice Award, and an IRA Teacher's Choice Award.

ERIC VELASQUEZ is the author and illustrator of Grandma's Records and Grandma's Gift, a Pura Belpré Award winner. He is also the illustrator of Houdini and The Piano Man, for which he won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award. His most recent collaborations with Carole Boston Weatherford include I, Matthew Henson, which received four starred reviews, and Jesse Owens: Fastest Man Alive, which received two starred reviews.
www.ericvelasquez.com

From School Library Journal

Gr 3-6-In 1856, John Price escaped from slavery in Kentucky by crossing the frozen Ohio River. Two years later, slave hunters arrived in Oberlin, Ohio, and attempted to take him back at gunpoint. Shopkeepers, farmers, teachers, and college students formed an armed group of Rescuers to release Price. Some members of the group were former slaves, risking their own freedom. Charged with violating the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Rescuers spent three months in jail. They returned home with a new purpose, vowing that "No fugitive slave shall ever be taken from Oberlin either with or without a warrant, if we have power to prevent it." The picture-book format is highly effective in conveying the power of the story. In Velasquez's dramatic mixed-media and oil paintings, determination shows in the stance of the figures and the set of their facial features. The book design is masterful. The front cover highlights John Price, surrounded by some of his champions. The back cover foreshadows a betrayal, with a hand dropping a gold coin into another hand, accompanied by the sentence, "How much is one man's life worth?" On the endpapers, a dark, quiet view of the river sets the stage for the conflict to come. Full-page images and spreads draw readers directly into the action. The final image is an 1859 large-scale photo of the Rescuers taken in the courtyard of the jail. This book could be used as a nonfiction partner to Christopher Paul Curtis's Elijah of Buxton (Scholastic, 2007) and as a resource in units about slavery, the Underground Railroad, or the Civil War.-Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VAα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About this edition

• Publisher: Walker Childrens
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0802721664
• ISBN 13: 9780802721662
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Velasquez Eric