Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that, while not as graphic as some books about slavery, this has its share of horrors, including beating deaths (only the aftermath described), lynching, scars from beatings and brandings, and adults and children shackled, starved, and deprived of water.
Families who read this book could discuss Pa's statement about escaped slaves: "don't no one get out of America without paying some terrible cost, without having something bad done permanent to 'em, without having something cut off of 'em or burnt into 'em or et up inside of 'em." What does it mean? Do you think it was true? How is it shown in each of the characters in the book? Young readers may also be interested in finding out more about the real Buxton.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
In Christopher Paul Curtis' award-winning debut, The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963, he firmly established the style that serves him so brilliantly in ELIJAH OF BUXTON. This is another first-person narrative, in vivid dialect, by a winningly naive child loaded with personality. Both books have a delightfully funny first half (some of the humor a bit off-color perhaps, but very true to the narrator's age and personality), and a powerfully moving historical event in the second half -- in this case it's slavery -- made more powerful by the familiarity the reader has with the characters it will impact.
In that appealing first half, the reader not only gets to know the characters, their personalities, values, and relationships, but also the utopian community they have consciously created. The settlement is a village of strangers with a common horror, in infinite variety, and determination in their backgrounds. They each understand the pain the others suffer, and have developed a careful politeness and a broad-shouldered support system out of that understanding. This care for one another has caused them to develop what Elijah calls "the secret language of being growned," which he doesn't understand until confronted with evil himself.
Despite one of the more hideous dust jackets in recent memory (you might want to remove the dust jacket before recommending it to a child), this wonderful, moving novel is sure to become a staple of discussion groups in schools and libraries across the country. Curtis' signal contribution to children's literature is his creation of novels that address important historical issues and events in an emotionally powerful, intellectually challenging, compassionate way, yet are simply rollicking good fun as well.
From The Book
She twisted her head to the side to look at Pa, unwrapped the toady-frog, and it dropped smack-down in her lap. She frozed up for 'bout one second, then jumped straight out the rocker. Yarn and needles and buttons and the toady-frog and the half-knit sweater flewed all over the stoop like your guts do after you been hoop snake bit! Ma's knitting spectacles jumped partway up her forehead and she started hopping up and down and slapping at her skirt like it's afire! The whole time she didn't scream nor say a word.
It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen in my life!
Me and Cooter near 'bout died peeking out of the ditch. It cain't be good for you to try to keep a laugh inside, I was this close to busting clean apart!
Plot Summary:
Elijah is the first child born in freedom in the Buxton settlement for escaped and freed slaves in Canada. Though he has certainly heard his elders talk, he has never experienced slavery directly. Instead, he has a good life, is getting a solid education, goes fishing, and lives with his loving family in their own home.
His closest experience of slavery has been the occasional rumors of slave catchers in the area, and when newly escaped slaves arrive at the settlement. That is, until the money Mr. Leroy was saving to buy the rest of his family out of slavery is stolen. Then Elijah, feeling partly responsible, agrees to cross over to America to try to get it back.
Includes Author's Note on Buxton, a real place, now an historic site.
Related Books:
Other Books by Christopher Paul Curtis:
The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963
Bud, Not Buddy
Bucking the Sarge
Slavery and Freedom:
The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
Brady by Jean Fritz
Caleb's Choice by G. Clifton Wisler
Jip: His Story by Katherine Paterson
My Home Is Over Jordan by Sandra Forrester
Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet
I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly: The Diary of Patsy, a Freed Girl, Mars Bluff, South Carolina, 1865 by Joyce Hansen
The Pox Party by M. T. Anderson
The Legend of Bass Reeves by Gary Paulsen
Related Web Sites:
Author's Site
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Sexual ContentTwo boys think their teacher is going to have a "family breeding contest" a supposedly hypnotized boy takes off his clothes in front of an audience. |
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ViolenceTwo men are beaten to death, one with a whip. Slaves are shackled, branded, and starved; a man is shot and badly injured; another is lynched; adults slap and punch children; a dog attacks and wounds a boy; it is implied that a slave will commit murder and suicide; a finger is cut off in a knife fight. |
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LanguageA boy almost says the N-word. |
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Social BehaviorElijah is brave and compassionate. |
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Commercialism |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoA boy smokes a cigar. |
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