Harriet and the Promised Land
Common Sense Note
Story and art combine powerfully to convey the desperate escape to freedom. Rhyming text and imaginative similes will also involve the reader.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Sally Snyder
First published in 1968, this book has just as much impact today in representing the lives of slaves who "work for your master from your cradle to your grave." It's more mood piece than biography, and the simple rhyme plays a supporting role, allowing the reader to explore the story primarily through the powerfully symbolic art.
Harriet made her escape in 1849, vowing to return to Maryland and help others flee. During the 1850s Harriet made 19 trips, leading about 300 slaves to freedom. While she shepherded them along the Underground Railroad, Harriet was known to threaten any slave attempting to turn back. The only choices for Harriet were freedom or death.
Jacob Lawrence uses strong, bold colors, and his partially abstract figures convey the universality of humankind. Art dominates each page, with white borders and a thin line. These lines sometimes encase the art and sometimes run off the page, creating movement in the illustrations. The page depicting Harriet using chickens as camouflage echoes an actual incident in which she released and chased after some hens she had bought to avoid being noticed by her former master.
Plot Summary:
Close at their heels howled the bloodhound pack. What would it be like to run for freedom, fearing capture and hoping for a new life? Determined to secure liberty for slaves in the pre-Civil War South, Harriet Tubman leads them "toward the Promised Land" in this tribute to her life told with striking art and poetry emphasizing slavery's emotional impact.
Related Books:
Readers will also find the life of slaves richly illustrated in Alvin Schroeder's Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. William Miller's Frederick Douglass is a superior look at another heroic slave.
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ViolenceSpecific horrors of slavery aren't reflected in the illustrations, but the intense artwork may inspire strong reactions. |
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