Christopher Paul Curtis is an award-winning author of juvenile fiction who focuses on race relations at different points in American history.
My first encounter with Curtis was when my son won the book, Bud, Not Buddy, on audio cassette from our local library. Bud is placed in an abusive foster care home during the the Great Depression after the death of his mother. He escapes with his suitcase of treasured personal objects, including the only clue to his father's identity, a flyer about a musician named Herman E. Calloway, and his jazz band. Bud decides to find his father, by walking to Grand Rapids, Michigan from Flint. During the journey, Bud makes friends, hides from enemies, and successfully avoids setting foot in the town that has outlawed the presence of black people. He does find Calloway, and discovers that Calloway is not his father, but his mother's father. Bud's mother ran away from Calloway when she met Bud's father. The identity of Bud's father is never discovered, nor is the reason he is no longer in Bud's life.
Curtis writes about the Depression for children, from a child's viewpoint, including such iconic scenes as a shanty town, hopping trains, and bread lines. This children's novel won the 2000 Newberry Medal, as well as the Coretta Scott King award. Highly Recommended.
It came as no surprise that one of Amazon's Top Books for Children this year is Curtis's latest work, Elijah of Buxton. Unlike Bud, Elijah lives with both of his parents before the Civil War in a settlement of free blacks in Buxton, Canada. What did come as a surprise was that Buxton was a real place, and the not the only one of it's kind. Curtis writes in the Author's Note, "What an interesting, beautiful, hope-filled place the Elgin Settlement and Buxton Mission of Raleigh was and is."
Elijah Freeman is the son of escaped slaves, and lives a normal life, going to school, struggling with Latin, and chunking rocks. It is his amazing gift for rock chunking that takes him out of the settlement for the first time. The Preacher, a mysterious and slippery character, convinces Elijah that they can earn some money for the Settlement. Elijah sneaks out with the Preacher to the carnival in the next town. They do not earn any money for the Settlement, but they do manage to rescue a young boy enslaved to the carnival owner.
One of Elijah's tasks is to collect the mail, and to read the letters to the largely illiterate adult population. When the wealthy Mrs. Holton learns from a letter that her husband was killed by the slavers that captured him, she gives all of her wealth to Mr. Leroy who has been saving to buy his own family out of America. Mr. Leroy acts too quickly and engages the Preacher to oversee the sale. Mr. Leroy takes Elijah with him to hunt down the Preacher after he has absconded with the money. Shortly after arriving in America, Mr. Leroy dies of a heart attack. Soon after, Elijah finds the Preacher's body in a stable, where he also finds five black slaves, chained by their hands and feet, awaiting to be driven like cattle by the men who have captured them. This scene may be too graphic for young readers and I have included it here. The woman in chains explains to Elijah, "Now I seen everything. A boy holding a man's gun fixing to shoot someone! But if you's set on killing that man, you's too late, chile. Looky there. He breathed his last just 'fore sunset...Had quite the mouth on him, that one did. I knowed they waren't taking him nowhere. I knowed when they brung him in here and bust his teeth out and split his tongue in two. They ain't never gunn treat no one what they's looking to sell like that. What they done with him waren't nothing but play, nothing but sport." Curtis writes, "I could see now it was ropes that were keeping Preacher's arms spread out to the sides. He was strunged up twixt two beams. Another rope was wrapped 'round and 'round his neck and was pinching his throat narrow and tight."
Failing to free the slaves in the stable, Elijah is able to take the woman's baby with him back to Buxton and give her a life a freedom. The lessons in this book are very mature, therefore this book is highly recommended for older readers.
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Friday, November 2, 2007
Christopher Paul Curtis
Christopher Paul Curtis is an award-winning author of juvenile fiction who focuses on race relations at different points in American history.
My first encounter with Curtis was when my son won the book, Bud, Not Buddy, on audio cassette from our local library. Bud is placed in an abusive foster care home during the the Great Depression after the death of his mother. He escapes with his suitcase of treasured personal objects, including the only clue to his father's identity, a flyer about a musician named Herman E. Calloway, and his jazz band. Bud decides to find his father, by walking to Grand Rapids, Michigan from Flint. During the journey, Bud makes friends, hides from enemies, and successfully avoids setting foot in the town that has outlawed the presence of black people. He does find Calloway, and discovers that Calloway is not his father, but his mother's father. Bud's mother ran away from Calloway when she met Bud's father. The identity of Bud's father is never discovered, nor is the reason he is no longer in Bud's life.
Curtis writes about the Depression for children, from a child's viewpoint, including such iconic scenes as a shanty town, hopping trains, and bread lines. This children's novel won the 2000 Newberry Medal, as well as the Coretta Scott King award. Highly Recommended.
It came as no surprise that one of Amazon's Top Books for Children this year is Curtis's latest work, Elijah of Buxton. Unlike Bud, Elijah lives with both of his parents before the Civil War in a settlement of free blacks in Buxton, Canada. What did come as a surprise was that Buxton was a real place, and the not the only one of it's kind. Curtis writes in the Author's Note, "What an interesting, beautiful, hope-filled place the Elgin Settlement and Buxton Mission of Raleigh was and is."
Elijah Freeman is the son of escaped slaves, and lives a normal life, going to school, struggling with Latin, and chunking rocks. It is his amazing gift for rock chunking that takes him out of the settlement for the first time. The Preacher, a mysterious and slippery character, convinces Elijah that they can earn some money for the Settlement. Elijah sneaks out with the Preacher to the carnival in the next town. They do not earn any money for the Settlement, but they do manage to rescue a young boy enslaved to the carnival owner.
One of Elijah's tasks is to collect the mail, and to read the letters to the largely illiterate adult population. When the wealthy Mrs. Holton learns from a letter that her husband was killed by the slavers that captured him, she gives all of her wealth to Mr. Leroy who has been saving to buy his own family out of America. Mr. Leroy acts too quickly and engages the Preacher to oversee the sale. Mr. Leroy takes Elijah with him to hunt down the Preacher after he has absconded with the money. Shortly after arriving in America, Mr. Leroy dies of a heart attack. Soon after, Elijah finds the Preacher's body in a stable, where he also finds five black slaves, chained by their hands and feet, awaiting to be driven like cattle by the men who have captured them. This scene may be too graphic for young readers and I have included it here. The woman in chains explains to Elijah, "Now I seen everything. A boy holding a man's gun fixing to shoot someone! But if you's set on killing that man, you's too late, chile. Looky there. He breathed his last just 'fore sunset...Had quite the mouth on him, that one did. I knowed they waren't taking him nowhere. I knowed when they brung him in here and bust his teeth out and split his tongue in two. They ain't never gunn treat no one what they's looking to sell like that. What they done with him waren't nothing but play, nothing but sport." Curtis writes, "I could see now it was ropes that were keeping Preacher's arms spread out to the sides. He was strunged up twixt two beams. Another rope was wrapped 'round and 'round his neck and was pinching his throat narrow and tight."
Failing to free the slaves in the stable, Elijah is able to take the woman's baby with him back to Buxton and give her a life a freedom. The lessons in this book are very mature, therefore this book is highly recommended for older readers.
My first encounter with Curtis was when my son won the book, Bud, Not Buddy, on audio cassette from our local library. Bud is placed in an abusive foster care home during the the Great Depression after the death of his mother. He escapes with his suitcase of treasured personal objects, including the only clue to his father's identity, a flyer about a musician named Herman E. Calloway, and his jazz band. Bud decides to find his father, by walking to Grand Rapids, Michigan from Flint. During the journey, Bud makes friends, hides from enemies, and successfully avoids setting foot in the town that has outlawed the presence of black people. He does find Calloway, and discovers that Calloway is not his father, but his mother's father. Bud's mother ran away from Calloway when she met Bud's father. The identity of Bud's father is never discovered, nor is the reason he is no longer in Bud's life.
Curtis writes about the Depression for children, from a child's viewpoint, including such iconic scenes as a shanty town, hopping trains, and bread lines. This children's novel won the 2000 Newberry Medal, as well as the Coretta Scott King award. Highly Recommended.
It came as no surprise that one of Amazon's Top Books for Children this year is Curtis's latest work, Elijah of Buxton. Unlike Bud, Elijah lives with both of his parents before the Civil War in a settlement of free blacks in Buxton, Canada. What did come as a surprise was that Buxton was a real place, and the not the only one of it's kind. Curtis writes in the Author's Note, "What an interesting, beautiful, hope-filled place the Elgin Settlement and Buxton Mission of Raleigh was and is."
Elijah Freeman is the son of escaped slaves, and lives a normal life, going to school, struggling with Latin, and chunking rocks. It is his amazing gift for rock chunking that takes him out of the settlement for the first time. The Preacher, a mysterious and slippery character, convinces Elijah that they can earn some money for the Settlement. Elijah sneaks out with the Preacher to the carnival in the next town. They do not earn any money for the Settlement, but they do manage to rescue a young boy enslaved to the carnival owner.
One of Elijah's tasks is to collect the mail, and to read the letters to the largely illiterate adult population. When the wealthy Mrs. Holton learns from a letter that her husband was killed by the slavers that captured him, she gives all of her wealth to Mr. Leroy who has been saving to buy his own family out of America. Mr. Leroy acts too quickly and engages the Preacher to oversee the sale. Mr. Leroy takes Elijah with him to hunt down the Preacher after he has absconded with the money. Shortly after arriving in America, Mr. Leroy dies of a heart attack. Soon after, Elijah finds the Preacher's body in a stable, where he also finds five black slaves, chained by their hands and feet, awaiting to be driven like cattle by the men who have captured them. This scene may be too graphic for young readers and I have included it here. The woman in chains explains to Elijah, "Now I seen everything. A boy holding a man's gun fixing to shoot someone! But if you's set on killing that man, you's too late, chile. Looky there. He breathed his last just 'fore sunset...Had quite the mouth on him, that one did. I knowed they waren't taking him nowhere. I knowed when they brung him in here and bust his teeth out and split his tongue in two. They ain't never gunn treat no one what they's looking to sell like that. What they done with him waren't nothing but play, nothing but sport." Curtis writes, "I could see now it was ropes that were keeping Preacher's arms spread out to the sides. He was strunged up twixt two beams. Another rope was wrapped 'round and 'round his neck and was pinching his throat narrow and tight."
Failing to free the slaves in the stable, Elijah is able to take the woman's baby with him back to Buxton and give her a life a freedom. The lessons in this book are very mature, therefore this book is highly recommended for older readers.
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