Burn Down Master’s House by Clay Cane

 

What is the last book you read in February? I finished this book up on the very last day of the month just in time to finish up #blackhistory month.

At Magnolia Row, Virginia, Henri starts a new life as an enslaved man.  He remembers freedom in Africa and yearns for it again.  He falls in love with another enslaved man, Luke, who has suffered abuse his entire life from his white enslaver, Junior.  When the cruelty goes too far, Luke and Henri take matters into their own hands. Their actions will inspire others who saw what happened and realize they have the power to make a change.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       Each chapter is long and is an individual linked story (four stories total).

·       Josephine is a quiet woman, but when the abuse becomes too much, she takes matters into her own hands.  It was interesting in the authors note at the end at she was based on two different women named Josephine and their true stories.

·       Charity Butler was in Pennsylvania for enough days for her to declare her freedom.  She marries and has two children only to have her old enslaver try to get her back with a famous lawyer, Thaddeus Stevens, and a trial.  This story was heartbreaking.

·       I had always heard of Thaddeus Stevens in history as an abolitionist.  I didn’t realize he was the lawyer in this type of case in the past that sent a woman and her children born free back to slavery.

·       Nathanial is a black man who owns slaves and is very cruel.  Will he get is comeuppance?

·       In this book, violence begat violence.

·       The story was very cleverly written.  It takes that starting main event and from this event, other acts of rebellion spread like a flame.

·       This book was almost too horrifying to read at times with the violence against the enslaved and the violence back from the enslaved.  I thought it was over the top at times only to discover in the author’s note that it was based on actual true events.  Our true history is horrifying.

·       I was debating with someone online yesterday and they told me that it was my “opinion” that the southern generals in the Civil War were traitors trying to keep in place the enslavement of another race.  This is not an opinion, but fact.  We need to stop teaching the lost cause myth and we need to embrace books like Burn Down Master’s house which vividly describe how cruel and inhumane slavery really was.  It’s uncomfortable, but it is our history.  This story did tell of hope.  It is also interesting that the true stories of enslaved people that did rebel have been kept in the dark.

Favorite Quotes:

“Misinformation is an old, strong tool:  it distorts history, manipulates narratives, and fuels power.  Misinformation makes it possible to win elections, spark wars, and turn neighbors into enemies with the stroke of a pen or a simple click.  The danger of being misled is more than ignorance; it’s political and social vulnerability.  A society untethered from truth can be easily controlled, its people divided by lies while the oligarchies consolidate their power.”

“Henri was a man with a spirit too wild to be caged; no amount of punishment, no beating, no harsh words could bend him into the shape of a proper field hand.  His rage was a monsoon, a rage he could not cast aside like she or Luke could.”

Overall, I was disturbed by Burn Down Master’s House by Clay Cane, and I can’t stop thinking about it.  It was a cleverly written book about the enslaved people who had enough and took matters into their own hands to win their own freedom.

Book Source:  Thank-you to Kensington Books and Between the Chapters Book Club for a review copy of this novel.

Jazz by Toni Morrison

 

Title:  Jazz

Author:  Toni Morrison

Narrated by:  Toni Morrison

Publisher: Random House Audio

Length: Approximately 3 hours

Source: Purchased from Audible and checked out a physical copy of the book from Kewaunee Public Library

Do you have a favorite jazz song or musician?  I have always loved the classic songs by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

In 1926, a middle-aged man named Joe murders his teenage girlfriend, Dorcas.  His wife, Violet, attacks the corpse at the funeral and stabs it across the face, earning her the nickname, “Violence.”  How did they end up in this situation?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I read Jazz by Toni Morrison this month for the Classics Buddy read hosted by @Dees.Reads.

·       The audiobook is read by the author, but it is abridged so I also had the physical book from the library to fill in the gaps.

·       I loved the jazzy music and sound effects in the audiobook and Toni Morrison reading her own work.

·       There is a great forward by Toni Morrison that sets up the book.  She was inspired by seeing an old picture of a pretty girl in a coffin and the description that went with the picture.  How creepy and interesting.

·       This is the second book in a series after Beloved.  Beloved centered on mother love and Jazz centers on couple love.  They are both set at different points in Black history, otherwise they are not related.

·       Jazz is a beautifully written book that flows like a jazz song.  Like jazz, the narrative does not flow the way you would expect it too, which made it hard to understand at times.

·       Just like when I recently read Beloved, I found using SparkNotes to be helpful after I read it to make sure I understood what I had read.

·       I am still confused though – why didn’t Joe go to jail for shooting Dorcas?

·       The setting for the book was mostly 1920s Harlem, but there are plenty of flashbacks to the past.

·       Violet and Joe’s marriage gets better after the shooting.  I guess they were finally about to talk through their problems, but I was disturbed about Joe.  He, a man in his fifties, was so upset that his teenage girlfriend had decided to date men her own age that he shot her.  I think Violet deserved a better man, but she also does bad by slashing Dorcas’s face at the funeral.  This was meant to represent her sadness as she wanted to be a mother, but her and Joe had decided not to have children and she realized she wanted to be a mother too late.  Violet learns she has to take control of her own life and happiness.

Overall, Jazz by Toni Morrison was an interesting novel written in a unique way.  I am glad I read this book.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

 

Title:  Beloved

Author:  Toni Morrison, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers - introduction

Narrated by:  Toni Morrison, Karen Murray

Publisher: Random House Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 33 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible

What is the saddest book you’ve ever read?  I would rate this as one of mine.

Sethe was born into slavery but was able to escape with her children to Ohio.  When her former master finds her and her children, she makes a decision that will haunt her forever.  Now a ghost haunts her home.  When a girl appears with the name Beloved, the only word carved on the tombstone of her baby, is this girl the ghost of her child or an imposter?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This was the January read for the Back to the Classics Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library.  Only two of us braved the cold, but we had a good discussion on this complex book.  I selected this book as I’ve been too scared to read I on my own as I knew it involved the death of a baby.

·       Toni Morrison won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for literature, but this is only the second book of hers that I’ve read.  I really wish we would have studied her when I was in college.

·       This was a deep book that I keep thinking about.  It was written in a very unique way with a variety of narrators and a variety of time periods.

·       I really liked the intro and the ending.  The ending basically said that terrible things happen and are then forgotten.  They need to be remembered so we don’t repeat the terrible things in our history.

·       I was disturbed to find out in the intro that this book was based on a true story.

·       I listened to this book on audiobook.  It was very interesting.  I liked also having a physical copy of the book to read along with it.  I also stopped and looked up chapter summaries on SparkNotes as recommended by a book club member. It did help me to understand what I was reading.

·       This was a very sad novel describing the horrors of slavery.  It was so horrifying that you would kill your own child rather than have them be a slave.  Sexual abuse was used to control the women and it didn’t just break the women, it broke the men as well to see their wives, mothers, and sisters treated this way.

·       Schoolteacher talks about Sethe like she is an animal.  He compares her to a horse and says that you can’t beat a horse too much or you wreck it.  His nephew and others had stolen Sethe’s milk and then whipped her.  She does not want her children to go back to this kind of life.  Other people do not understand this.

·       The house is haunted, and no one will go inside due to what has happened to her.

Overall, Beloved by Toni Morrison was a haunting novel about a terrible part of our history.

Go Tell it On the Mountain by James Baldwin

 

Title:  Go Tell it On the Mountain

Author:  James Baldwin

Narrated by:  Adam Lazarre-White

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Length: Approximately 8 hours and 45 minutes

Source: Checked out from the Kewaunee Public Library through Libby

What is the worst birthday you’ve had?  I had a couple in a row where I had the stomach flu and then hypomesis gravidum when pregnant with my daughter. This pales in comparison to John Grimes birthday in Go Tell it On the Mountain.

John Grimes is celebrating his14th birthday and struggles with his faith over the course of a day.  The book explores the complexity of his family.  Set during the depression in New York City, will John find his morality and purpose in life?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I read this book as part of the Classics Buddy Read for June with @Dees.reads.

·       Go Tell it On the Mountain was James Baldwins first published novel in 1953.  He was thirty years old when it was published.  He did well as this novel has been ranked by Time magazine as one of the top 100 English language novels.

·       This seems to be a semi-autobiographical novel as much of it is based on Baldwin’s own life.  He was born out of wedlock to an unwed mother.  His mother never told him who his biological father was.  She married a Baptist preacher.  He and his father had a difficult relationship.  He didn’t like that James like to read and had white friends.

·       This is complex story of an unhappy family.

·       This was a very well written novel, but also a very bleak story.

·       This was a coming-of-age story for 14-year old John Grimes, but it also delves into the past of his father, Aunt Florence, mother, and grandmother.

·       It was interesting look at the struggle between faith and living the life you want to live and faith versus sexuality.  As part of their faith there was no cards, music, dancing, etc. and it a struggle for the young people.

·       John’s mother Elizabeth had a tragic love story with Richard, John’s biological father.  He was arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.  It broke him and caused his suicide.

·       John’s father, Gabriel, is a pastor, but greatly struggles with following his faith and avoiding sin.  He drove me insane.  He judges Elizabeth for having a child out of wedlock, something he himself also did, but never acknowledged.  The hypocrisy and double standard for sexual morality of women versus men was astounding.

·       The audiobook had a great narrator with a deep voice who was perfect for the preaching sections.

Overall, Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin was a bleak, but well written coming of age novel about the struggles between faith, racism, and sexism.

The Street by Ann Petry

 

Title: The Street

Author:  Ann Petry

Narrated by:  Danielle Deadwyler

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Length: Approximately 13 hours and 25 minutes

Source: Audiobook Purchased from Audible

Have you “discovered” any new authors lately through Instagram?  I recently discovered Ann Petry through various Instagram posts and being a part of the Classics Buddy Read in February with @deesreads.  The Street was published in 1946 and I can’t believe I had never heard of this book or author until recently.

Lutie Johnson is a young black woman struggling to raise her son as a single mother in Harlem in the 1940s.  She wants a better life for her son Bub.  She believed in her marriage until her husband Jim couldn’t get a job.  Rather than lose their home, Lutie became a life in housekeeper for a rich family.  She could only go home to visit for four days a month.  Jim found a new woman who moved into their home while Lutie was gone.  This leads Lutie to move to a dumpy apartment on the street.  Will Lutie and Bub be able to make a better life for themselves?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This novel had well developed, complex characters.  It is told through many points of view which I found compelling.

·       It captures the trials and tribulations of poor African Americans in New York City during the 1940s.  Trying to get by was very hard and the oppression of hunger and no available jobs weighs them down.

·       I was confused for a bit in the novel when Lutie would go to Jamica to visit.  I was like – why, she sure is traveling a long way all the time.  I ended up looking it up and it’s a neighborhood in New York City.

·       The building supervisor, Jones, and his lust for Lutie was so scary.  It was built up through the novel and very suspenseful.

·       My favorite character was Mrs. Hedges.  She watched the neighborhood and knew everything that was going on.  She had a will to succeed and helped people out.  She was a madame to make money off of other women, so she was a complicated person.

·       Lutie kept struggling to make a living for her and Bub, but racially, sexually, and economically, the world was working against her.  Instead of helping her out, people just kept trying to take advantage of her.

·       This novel had quite the ending, I can’t stop thinking about it.  Lutie was caught in an impossible situation with no good solution.

·       I want to read more books by this author.  Have you read any other her other books?  If so, what do you recommend?

Overall, The Street by Ann Petry was an excellent, well-crafted novel with compelling characters and storyline.  It has kept me thinking and prompted a good discussion in the Classics Buddy Read.

Red Clay by Charles B. Fancher (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @blackstonepublishing or the review copy of Red Clay by Charles B. Fancher.

Do you annotate your books or keep them pristine? I prefer to keep mine pristine, but I do love to find used copies with annotations.

In 1943, Flex H. Parker has passed away.  His family is surprised when an elderly white woman shows up at his funeral and pronounces that “a lifetime ago, my family owned yours.”  Together, this woman, Adelaide Parker, and Felix’s family piece together the story of their two intwined families.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       Wow!  This was a great family drama that kept me reading too late into the night.  It only took me a couple of days to read this three hundred plus page novel as I could not put it down.  I love complicated family historical fiction stories, and this was a great one.

·       I enjoyed how the story flowed through time focusing on young Felix growing up and becoming a young man, husband, and father in the reconstruction era in the American South.  It was a fraught time any misstep could mean death for a young black man who was trying to get ahead in life.

·       Intertwined was the story of the white Parker family.  Without Felix holding onto a family secret while he was young, the family would not have made it through the Civil War with their fortune in tack.  I in particular liked the growth of Adelaide from an intolerant little girl to an understanding woman.  Her brother Claude had the opposite growth.  They were well developed characters.

·       I liked how most of the characters were three dimensional and were “gray” characters morally.

·       I enjoyed the time period that most of the novel was set in, which was the reconstruction period after the Civil War.  I feel like most novels end with the Civil War and don’t explore this time period.  The author obviously did a lot of research and made that time period come alive in the novel.

·       I felt the story was a bit rushed at the end.  It could have stretched even longer or have been made into a series.

·       I enjoyed the author’s note at the end.  He was inspired by the true-life story of his great-grandfather and included some of his adventures in the novel.  It is overall a work of historical fiction.  I was surprised to read this was his first novel.

·       The book and cover are of great quality, with thick pages.

Overall, Red Clay by Charles B. Fancher is a riveting and compelling historical fiction novel.  I highly recommend it.

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

 

Title:  The Sweetness of Water

Author:  Nathan Harris

Narrated by:  William DeMeritt

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 10 minutes

Source: Purchased from Amazon.com with physical book checked out from the Kewaunee Public Library.

What flowers are blooming in your area?  I was happy to return home from Michigan last week and discover daffodils blooming in my yard.

At the end of the Civil War in Georgia, two brothers, Prentis and Landry have been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, but they don’t know where to go or how to support themselves.  George Walker finds them on his land and offers them a job with a decent wage to help him clear land and to plant a peanut field.  This act sets the town against George and his family.  George and his wife Isabelle are mourning the loss of their son Caleb in the Civil War.  When Caleb returns home and is labeled a coward, the Walkers must make a stand and find a way forward.  Caleb has a forbidden love with a childhood friend and fellow soldier, August.  Will the Walker family and Prentis and Landy be able to navigate reconstruction to live in a better world?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This was the April pick for the Page-turner’s Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library.  It provided a great discussion for book club.  I enjoyed the discussion, and it furthered my enjoyment of the book.

·       This novel was also an Oprah Book Club pick in 2021.

·       The novel was slow moving for the first half, but the action really picked up in the second half.

·       It made me really ponder what happened after the Civil War.  Society had gone through a giant upheaval.  How do you go back to “normal?”  What is the new “normal?”

·       This novel was character driven rather than plot driven.  The characters were all very interesting.  How far will you go to do what is right?

·       I felt like this was a coming-of-age story for Caleb, Landry, and George.

·       The novel had beautiful writing with rich language.

·       The Sweetness of Water was author Nathan Harris’s debut novel.  It was an excellent book and so well written, it was hard to believe it was a first novel.

·       I loved how all the main characters had to find courage to move forward.

·       I liked the ending.  It was positive, but realist.

·       Trigger warning:  The climax had brutal violence that was heartbreaking. 

·       This was an excellent audiobook.

Overall, The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris was a beautifully written, deeply moving character study set during reconstruction. 

A Christmas to Remember by Beverly Jenkins (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @avonbooks for the review copy of A Christmas to Remember by Beverly Jenkins.

Does your community do anything special for the Christmas season?  We have our Christmas lights parade this upcoming Friday night and a Christkindlmart that takes place downtown on Friday and Saturday.  It’s the start of the Christmas season for me.

Henry Adams, Kansas is the setting for A Christmas to Remember.  Bernadine Brown and Mal July are preparing for their Christmas wedding, but it’s not the only thing that is going on in this busy small town.  As the town prepares to celebrate Christmas, many townspeople explore the relationships in their lives.

This is the eleventh book of the “Blessings” series and the first one that I have read.  This was a hard book to read as a standalone novel.  There were a lot of characters, and I had a hard time keeping track of who they were.  I think if I had started this series at the beginning and really knew the characters, I would have enjoyed the novel even more.  I liked the characters and their stories.  I especially loved Reverand Paula Grant and her sage wisdom, and Thornton Webb, the new chef in town.

This was my first Beverly Jenkins novel, but it won’t be my last.  I was also pleased to see she is a Michigan native.  I am originally from Michigan.  I enjoyed that her characters are African American and that the setting, Henry Adams, is a historic black community in Kansas.  I think my next stop will be reading the first book in this series, Bring on the Blessings.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

 

Do you ever wonder about your ancestors?  Have you researched your genealogy?  I think genealogy is fascinating and have dabbled with it.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi was our May book club pick for the Rogue Book Club.  I have been wanting to read this book for a long time and was glad to finally get to read it.

In the 18^th century, two half sisters are born in Ghana and go on to live very different lives.  Effia marries an Englishman and lives in the Cape Coast Castle.  Her husband has a wife back in England and is involved in the slave trade.  Esri is captured in the basement of the Castle and is shipped to the United States as a slave.  The novel traces the lives of the descendants of the two sisters as they live their lives through turbulent times in Ghana and the United States.

I’ll admit when the book first switched from the sisters to their descendants, I had a hard time trying to figure out what was going on.  Each chapter tells the story of a new descendant, although some characters are in the stories of their descendants as well.  I got used to the format and I also really liked the family try at the start of the book.  I didn’t really feel the true genius of the novel until I got to the end of the novel.  It perfectly ties up the entire story.

It reminded me of Roots, but I liked that it showed how the families differed between who stayed behind in Africa and who went to the United States.  I liked the unique format and the journey.

Book Source: Purchased from Barnes and Nobles.  Thank-you!

 

Black Girls Must Have it All by Jayne Allen (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harperperennial for the review copy of Black Girls Must Have it All by Jayne Allen.

Do you ever start a series in the middle or end or do you always start with the first book?

Black Girls Must Have it All is the third in a series of books.  I enjoyed this book, but I definitely want to go back and read the entire series.

SYNOPSIS:

In this final installment in the acclaimed Black Girls Must Die Exhausted trilogy, Tabitha is juggling work, relationships, and a newborn baby—but will she find the happy ending she’s always wanted?

After a whirlwind year, Tabitha Walker’s carefully organized plan to achieve the life she wanted—perfect job, dream husband, and stylish home—has gone off the rails. Her checklist now consists of diapers changed (infinite), showers taken (zero), tears cried (buckets), and hours of sleep (what’s that?).

Don't get her wrong, Tabby loves her new bundle of joy and motherhood is perhaps the only thing that's consistent for her these days. When the news station announces that they will be hiring outside competitors for the new anchor position, Tabby throws herself into her work. But it’s not just maintaining her position as the station’s weekend anchor that has her worried. All of her relationships seem to be shifting out of their regular orbits. Best friend Alexis can’t manage to strike the right balance in her “refurbished” marriage with Rob, and Laila’s gone from being a consistent ride-or-die to a newly minted entrepreneur trying to raise capital for her growing business. And when Marc presents her with an ultimatum about their relationship, coupled with an extended “visit” from his mother, Tabby is forced to take stock of her life and make a new plan for the future.

Consumed by work, motherhood, and love, Tabby finds herself isolated from her friends and family just when she needs them most. But help is always there when you ask for it, and Tabby’s village will once again rally around her as she comes to terms with her new life and faces her biggest challenge yet—choosing herself.

Publication Date:  April 11, 2023.  

My thoughts:  While I am not a black woman, this book was so relatable for working women who are trying to get ahead both at work and struggle with having taking care of a newborn child.  My youngest is 12, but the descriptions of the all-consuming task of keeping your newborn alive and fed brought back a lot of memories.  Add to this the extra layer of being a black woman and this gave me a new perspective.  This is a character driven novel.  I loved getting to know Tabby, Marc and her friends Alexis and Laila.

The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson

 

Title:  The House of Eve

Author:  Sadeqa Johnson

Narrated by:  Ariel Blake and Nicole Lewis

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 27 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

Do you like book covers that show faces?  I love this book cover, but it goes with the trend of having a headless person.  The other trend I notice is the back of someone walking away.  I think it's so you can imagine yourself as the character.  I like covers that show faces and also those that don’t.  I love the color of the dress on this cover.

The House of Eve is a riveting new historical fiction novel that I couldn’t put down.  I was listening to it on audiobook and I had a hard time stopping the story to do things like work, eat, or talk to my family.  The House of Eve is set in 1948 and is the story of two very women. Ruby is a fifteen year old in Philadelphia.  She is working on getting good grades and a scholarship to be the first person in her family to go to college.  It’s hard work as her single mother doesn’t care to raise her and cares more about her boyfriend of the month.  When Ruby meets Shimmy, sparks fly and she will make a decision that could potentially impact her life forever.

Eleanor is attending Howard University in Washington DC and is the pride her family from Ohio.  She has the dream of becoming an archivist at a library.  When she meets the handsome William Pride, she is instantly smitten.  William is from an elite and rich family in Washington DC.  Eleanor feels that William’s mother Rose will never accept her. Will having a baby bring her into the family more?

I really enjoyed the two different alternating narratives.  Ruby grew up in poverty with a single mother, while Eleanor had a more middle class upbringing with two parents.  They both have ambitions, and they both have to work hard for what they want.  I don’t want to ruin the story for others, but I loved the realistic challenges that the two women faced including pregnancy, racism, social pressures, body image issues, etc.

I also loved learning about the social scene of elite African Americans in Washington DC in the late 1940s.  It was new to me and so interesting.  There was also a section of the book that was disturbing showing what happened to unwed mothers who were sent to religious homes for unwed mothers.  I can’t stop thinking about this and how these mothers were treated.

Author Sadeqa Johnson previously wrote another historical fiction novel that I thought was excellent, Yellow Wife.  I LOVED that there was a connection to Yellow Wife at the end of The House of Eve.  It made me want to clap.  It was perfect.  I also read that this was a personal story for Johnson as her grandmother found herself a 14-year old unwed mother.

Ariel Blake and Nicole Lewis were great and engaging narrators.  The story was told through both Ruby and Eleanor’s point of view.  Each narrator told the story of each character and it made it so it seemed like their own personal story.  I enjoyed it.

 

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

 

Title:  Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

Author:  Ilyon Woo

Narrated by:  Janina Edwards and Leon Nixon

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 54 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

What book would you like to see made into a movie?  Master Slave Husband Wife is the true story of Ellen and William Craft and their daring escape from slavery in 1848.  It was a riveting book and I can’t believe their story has not yet been made into a movie!

Ellen was a light skinned woman who was enslaved by her half-sister.  William was a cabinet maker and was rented out to ply his trade.  When Ellen’s half-sister’s husband was faced with trying financial times and started selling off slaves, the two came up with a daring plan to escape north.  Ellen dressed up as a fragile young white man who was traveling with his slave, William.  The two took trains, boats, and carriages as they traveled north.  There were many moments of suspense that the two would be caught along the way, but they did make it.

Soon after their escape, they traveled through the north on a speaking tour with William Wells Brown and Frederick Douglass telling of their escape.  After the tour they settled down and William owned his own business. Unfortunately, this safety was not to last as the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850.  Soon there were people after Ellen and William, and they had to make another escape to Canada and then on to England. 

This was an eye-opening book.  I find it horrifying that someone would own their own children and gift one child to another.  Ellen was a particularly troublesome child as she was often mistaken for a legitimate child with her light skin.  Reading about how William’s family was broken up was also heartbreaking.

 I liked that Ellen and William were able to fake their confidence to make it.  They needed that confidence to act like a gentleman and servant.  I also loved just how smart their plan was.  Ellen wore a shoulder harness to appear like she had an injury so that she couldn’t sign her name (she couldn’t read or write).  She also had poultices on her face to appear ill to help cover up her lack of facial hair.   Such a sickly person would definitely need a slave with her at all times. 

It was disturbing that once they fled to Canada, they were still treated with prejudice and had a hard time getting out of the country. Once they made it to England they were surprised to be treated as human beings with dignity.

Author Ilyon Woo did a masterful job of weaving a compelling narrative.  Woo also included a lot of great background information on the abolition movement that I thought was very interesting.   Janina Edwards and Leon Nixon were captivating narrators.

I read this in February for Black History month, but I’m a bit late on my posting.