Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad
Written by: Ellen Levine Illustrated by: Kadir Nelson
Henry's Freedom Box is a story about a boy born and raised into slavery. Henry and his mother are both slaves and their master is on his death bed. Henry dreams of freedom after hearing stories of masters freeing their slaves when they die. But Henry's master believed Henry was a good slave and passed Henry on to his son. Henry continued to be a hard worker and fell in love with another young female slave. Henry was so infatuated he felt like singing. Singing was not allowed by slaves so Henry hummed instead. Henry marries Nancy and they have children. Nancy mentions to Henry that something he should worry about is Nancy and the children getting separated from Henry through being sold. Unfortunately, Henry's worst nightmare comes true. This story continues with Henry trying to find a way back to his wife and children and his journey to freedom.
I chose this book because civil rights have always been something that fascinated me. I studied Political Science for a few years and many of the cases I studied were on civil rights. The Underground Railroad is something else that fascinated me ever since learning about it so many years ago. I really liked this book though it did not end the way I suspected it would. The book is somewhat disheartening and not like most of the other books that I have been reading from the Caldecott list. Many of the books I have been reading have been stories about talking animals and have not as rich in content. This book is very deep and emotion driven. I would recommend this book for students 3rd through 5th grade. This is not a book I would read to students in 1st or 2nd although this book is not graphic and does not depict any of the brutality that many slaves faced. This would be a good book when introducing the Underground Railroad and children might relate more since the story begins as Henry as a child.
I too have always been interested in this subject and it is something that is to be taught in schools. Childrens book that deal with this topic are great. They teach a lot about the subject for kids to understand without so much of a harsh mental picture. It eases them into the subject giving them background information, and preps them for when they learn more details when they're older.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a very interesting book and a little sad. This book can teach a very important lesson about the difficulties in life. You did a very good summary and now i want to read it.
ReplyDeleteI think this would be a great book to read to young children to teach them about civil rights! It would also show them that not all stories, especially historically based ones, end very happily. I think it is kind of random that this book showed up on your list since you have been sharing a lot of the talking animal books, but I'm interested in reading this nonetheless! Great choice!
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