Happy Birthday, Addy!: A Springtime Story

A young African-American girl who is separated from family members by slavery and the Civil War is encouraged by a new friend to claim a birthday and to confront the prejudices she is experiencing. Simultaneous.

Grade 3-5-The story of Addy and her family, who have escaped from slavery, continues in these two stories set in Philadelphia just before and after the end of the Civil War. Happy Birthday, Addy opens with the protagonist leading a more stable life with her father now delivering ice and searching for a carpenter's position and her mother taking in laundry. Although both parents are being paid as free citizens, the realities of prejudice are clearly evident as Addy laments, "all the colored people got a strange kind of freedom here...There are jobs we can't get and shops we can't eat at just because of the color of our skin." Despite this, she learns the value of optimism from wise, old, blind M'Dear. Addy Saves the Day includes the excitement of a church fair sponsored for postwar family assistance and Abby helping to catch the thief who steals the raised monies. Both books have a good balance of emotion, historical facts, and suspense to keep readers interested; they are attractively illustrated with colorful vignettes and full-page paintings. An addendum, "A Peek Into the Past," provides a good explanation of the time period and its customs, conventions, and realities. Nicely done.
Rita Soltan, Baldwin Public Library, Birmingham, MI
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.