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Gr 4-6 Fleshing out historical events with invented but credible details, Polacco retraces the 1840s flight of the Crosswhite family from slavery to freedom and the dramatic standoff between the residents (black and white both) of the Michigan town where they settled and a band of "paddy rollers" sent to fetch the fugitives back to Kentucky. In lightly idiomatic language ("'Hark now, ' their daddy whispered. 'We is gonna cross water tonight!'"), the author relates most of the ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

After an escaped slave has been found and returned to a Kentucky plantation to be whipped to death, young Sadie Crosswhite and her family decide they must escape themselves, making for the Ohio River, where they are taken across to Indiana by a "rowin' girl." The family eventually reaches a protective community in Michigan, where they live safely until found by their erstwhile owner; he demands their return, and the law is on his side. Like Polacco's Civil War story Pink and Say (rev. 11/94), this long picture book is b...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

This long picture book is based on a true historical incident, one that illuminates the necessity and strategies of the Undergroun...Log In or Sign Up to Read More