Elijah of Buxton, by Christopher Paul Curtis, is the 2008 winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for text. This is a wonderful story about an eleven-year-old boy who was known in his community for throwing up on Frederick Douglas when he was a baby. But by the end of the book, Elijah does something so brave and “growned” up that I believe his reputation will have changed forever. Elijah was the first free child born in Buxton, a community of former slaves in Canada that really exists. Throughout the story, he is depicted as “fra-gile” because he is sensitive and has a tendency to overreact to emotional situations. But he’s also very wise when he takes the time to think through things. He goes down into Michigan with a man whose life savings had been stolen by a supposed preacher, only to have the man die when they get there and find the preacher’s dead too. So, he can’t get the money back, which was supposed to free the man’s family from slavery. But he finds a group of slaves chained to a wall in a stable, and figures out a way he can help one of them, the baby who’s not chained. The book is filled with realistic language and situations from the early 1860s, but all of it is handled in a way that is interesting yet appropriate for its intended audience of late elementary through middle school readers.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Elijah of Buxton
Elijah of Buxton, by Christopher Paul Curtis, is the 2008 winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for text. This is a wonderful story about an eleven-year-old boy who was known in his community for throwing up on Frederick Douglas when he was a baby. But by the end of the book, Elijah does something so brave and “growned” up that I believe his reputation will have changed forever. Elijah was the first free child born in Buxton, a community of former slaves in Canada that really exists. Throughout the story, he is depicted as “fra-gile” because he is sensitive and has a tendency to overreact to emotional situations. But he’s also very wise when he takes the time to think through things. He goes down into Michigan with a man whose life savings had been stolen by a supposed preacher, only to have the man die when they get there and find the preacher’s dead too. So, he can’t get the money back, which was supposed to free the man’s family from slavery. But he finds a group of slaves chained to a wall in a stable, and figures out a way he can help one of them, the baby who’s not chained. The book is filled with realistic language and situations from the early 1860s, but all of it is handled in a way that is interesting yet appropriate for its intended audience of late elementary through middle school readers.
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