I Am #6: Harriet Tubman

Normally I wouldn’t select a series book for review, I could not put this one down. It’s a Scholastic primer for kids, but it refreshed my memory and taught me things I hadn’t known about the great emancipator. For example, a slave could marry a freeman, but still remained  a slave, and the children of that union would be born into slavery. If the plantation myth still has any legs, books like this ought to knock them in the shins. There’s a reason the term slave labor is still part of the modern lexicon. Slaves were worked hard—sometimes to death, male and female. Food was scarce. There was no sick time, not for measles or fatigue or beating-induced delirium. Animals were treated better.

Harriet Tubman was what I would call a No person in social justice history, one who refuses refuse to accept misanthropic cultural norms. After escaping herself from the second plantation she had been sold to, she realized her talent and found her life’s purpose in smuggling slaves out of the South. I found some delightful surprises throughout, so I’m assuming children (probably third and fourth graders) will as well, such as Tubman’s various disguises, her military career during the Civil War, and her work for the women’s suffrage movement.

The book gently narrates the hazards of her professions that had her always dancing on the edge of a blade. It is also not sentimental in its exploration of the woman people called Moses,  though of course it has gently editorial commentary throughout. It will introduce young readers to other historical figures such as Frederick Douglass and William Seward, and to important historical concepts such as abolitionism and the Underground Railroad. With its glossary and index, this could be a very enjoyable textbook.

The concept of slavery is, unfortunately, not relegated to the middle of the 19^th century. According to humantrafficking.org, possibly 17,000 people are trafficked into the United States alone every year.  This book would make a good companion study for a project on a contemporary international problem, for older children who can grasp the issue of modern slavery.

Grace Norwich has written about John F Kennedy, Albert Einstein, and Helen Keller, among others, in her series. Harriet Tubman is  128 pages and has simple illustrations throughout.