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A challenging read, written in great detail like a text from university. I am from Charleston and I never knew the Grimke story until now. The house still stands and you can tour it. But do they talk about the horrors that went on inside it? There were some very dark parts in this book, as is anything truthfully told about slavery. The Grimke family were an elite, wealthy family who owned multiple plantations and hundreds of slaves. The⬇️

Did you know that PA had a ‘gradual‘ abolition law in 1780? It was approved by the legislature only after Quaker leaders heeded the appeals of wealthy slaveholders and merchants who feared the economic and racial consequences of immediate emancipation. It gave ‘freedom‘ to enslaved children born after 1780 but required them to serve former masters for 28 years…

I didn‘t like this as much as Deacon King Kong and Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, but it was still good and definitely has some of the funny tongue in cheek satire you‘d expect from McBride. It‘s a low pick for me. DKK is my fave by him.

In this broadly comic account of a tragic story, an enslaved 12-year-old boy is freed by John Brown, mistaken for a girl, and spends the next few years enmeshed in Brown's plans for an uprising to end slavery. Henry, aka Onion, is focused mainly on his own survival and definitely not on heroism. By the inevitable end, his attachment to Brown gives emotional resonance to a death that forced a nation to face its sins.

Such a good read! The Crafts were daring and strong in their escape, but this book also offers more about their life in “freedom” than just the escape. Excellently written, captivating, and a great learning experience. We need more books like this!

Flee North, don‘t stop until you reach Canada. This was the advice given to those held in slavery by Thomas Smallwood, their hero and rescuer. Yet he did not follow his own advice for years. This was an intense story of bravery.