Voices from the Underground Railroad - Hardcover

Winters, Kay

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803740921 ISBN 13: 9780803740921

Publisher: Dial Books, 2018

Synopsis

From the creators of Voices from the Oregon Trail and Colonial Voices, an unflinching story of two young runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad, told in their voices and those who helped and hindered them

It's the 1850s and enslaved siblings Jeb and Mattie are about the make a break for freedom. The pair travel north from Maryland to New Bedford, Massachusetts along the Underground Railroad. Each spread tells about a step of their journey through a poem in the first person perspective. The main and repeating voices are Jeb and Mattie, but we also hear from the stationmasters and conductors, those who offer them haven, as well as those who want to capture them.

Like its predecessors in the Voices series, this richly researched and beautifully illustrated picture book brings a difficult chapter of American history to life for young readers.

About this title

About the Author

Kay Winters is a former teacher and the author of many children's books. She lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Larry Day has been illustrating children's books for the last twelve years. He lives in Oak Park, Illinois.

Review

Jeb and Mattie, siblings living under slavery on a Maryland plantation, tell their story of escape on the Underground Railroad.The story, told in alternating voices, opens in 1861 with Jeb, a blacksmith and slave, whose free black co-worker and friend, Sam, is part of the Underground Railroad. When Mattie, a house slave, overhears plans to sell Jeb, the siblings know they must run to avoid their mother's fate: being sold south. ...Day's illustrations, which have the look of ink and watercolor, are filled with details that elicit a nearly tangible sense of time and place... Well-utilized endpapers map the siblings' escape route.A good step-by-step portrayal of the dangers slaves were willing to risk for freedom and the complex, lifesaving organization that was the Underground Railroad. (historical notes, note from the author, references) (Picture book/poetry. 6-10) Kirkus


In this companion to Colonial Voices and Voices from the Oregon Trail, Jeb and Mattie, two enslaved siblings in 1861 Maryland, are determined not to be "sold South" as their mother was.Helped by members of the Underground Railroad and pursued by bounty hunters emboldened by the Fugitive Slave Act, they travel up the Eastern seaboard to New Bedford, Mass., a city famous its resistance to slavery. Winters chronicles their journey in a series of monologues from every player in the story, taking pains to reflect the latest scholarship on the Underground Railroad (which is further explained in the thoughtful afterword). Jeb and Mattie's courage is front and center, and the movement is portrayed as encompassing both white helpers and free black people.cy in Jeb and Mattie's flight,    Readers will come away with a better understanding of the horror and hope that drove people to risk everything for freedom. Ages 7-9. (Jan.)Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Dial Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0803740921
• ISBN 13: 9780803740921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Day Larry