Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

2008 Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Award Winner

Rating Explanation

Language: The word “blanged” is used as a cuss word in the book.

From the book, “And me and all’em other little nigg–“

“I didn’t even get the chance to get the whole word out. I never saw it coming”

Violence: After the above exchange, Mr. Leroy backhands Elijah across the mouth. He blacks out for a second. The preacher rescues a black boy at gun point who is basically a slave in a carnival. A woman learns through a letter that her husband, who was still a slave in the U.S., was accused of stealing and then beaten so badly that he died.  Elijah’s mother relates the story that when she was a girl, her mistress took her on a trip to Michigan. When she comes back and tells her own mother how close she was to Canada her mother hits her three times for not trying to escape. She tells her daughter, “If you gets another chance and don’t take it…or die trying…I swear, girl, I’ll kill you myself once you get back here.” The preacher shoots and beats up a fellow inhabitant of Buxton, then leaves him for dead.  Brief description, after the fact, of the preacher being beaten and tortured. He is left hanging by his arms in the barn after he is dead.

Adult Themes: Many issues involving slavery. Slaves in the U.S. trying to escape to Canada. Some are caught and taken back to their masters. While it is illegal to have slaves in Canada, slavery is still practiced in the United States. Several families in Buxton are separated because the father or mother has escaped and is trying to earn the money necessary to buy the rest of their family out of slavery in the U.S. Runaway slaves are chained up in a barn. They have shackles on their hands and feet and are naked. The preacher in the story asks Elijah to deceive his parents and sneak out with him late at night to go to a carnival. He is also dishonest with Elijah when dividing fish between them. He eventually steals a significant amount of money and nearly kills a friend.

Synopsis

Elijah is the first child born free in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of former slaves not far from the American border. He is a “fra-gile” boy who is gullible and given to crying, but he is also honest, kind and, although he doesn’t know it, brave.  Elijah’s friend is saving money to buy his family out of slavery in the south, but when someone steals that money Elijah must track down the thief. On his own, he discovers that he is “growned” and can handle the most difficult of situations.

This is an exceptional book. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing which brought Elijah and the other inhabitants of Buxton to life. His humor is priceless, “It sounded peculiar at first, but if you started thinking like you didn’t have no common sense at all it seemed like Cooter’s put it all together real good!” and there are many life lessons, “Let this here be a lesson to you. You caint let your wantings blind you to what’s the truth. You always got to look at things the way they is, not the way you wish ’em to be.”

This book allows young readers to become more acquainted with the issues of slavery without being too intense. The focus of the story is Elijah, how he grows up, and the adventure he is drawn into. But at the same time we learn about others who have escaped a life of slavery and those who have tried to escape, but were unsuccessful. Some of the lessons in the book will be lost on younger readers and they will just enjoy the story, but for those a little more mature, they will learn that the price of freedom for some is great and for others it costs all.

Amazon lists the reading level as ages 9-12. I agree with the reading level, but I think that an older child would learn more from it. I wouldn’t recommend it for my 9 year-old, but I want my 12 year-old to read it.

©2009 The Literate Mother