Liberty Street

Libery Street, by Candace Ransom

Much of our discussion in class for the last two weeks has been about genres of children's literature. When I selected historical fiction as my genre of choice, I wanted to dig a little deeper into what types of historical fiction books there are in our library. After typing in several different subgroups, I decided to go with the topic of slavery. I found so many books that intrigued me and decided to blog about them for this week.

Liberty Street was my favorite children's book about slavery that I found. Full of emotion, this is a story about a little girl, Kezia, and her mother as they struggle to stay together on the plantation that they work on. The story shows readers that every day of the week, Kezia and her family have work that needs to be done for their master, Missus Grace. However on Sunday, Kezia and her family are allowed to travel down what Kezia calls "Liberty Street." They would walk down here and socialize and have a sort of freedom from their owners. Kezia, along with a few other slave children, are secretly taught by Miss Eulalie. They are taught to read and spell in the dark of the night, with fear that their master will catch them and they will be punished. Eventually, Kezia is separated from her mother when she is told to escape to freedom through the underground railroad. Tells the bittersweet story of getting freedom but losing family along the way, and the difficult decisions slave families had to make.

If I were to use this book in my classroom, I would really make a point to show my students how important education was during the time of slavery. I think that kids tend to take education and school for granted, and see it as something that everyone just has to do. However, this book really touches its audience and I would really do a focused activity to put in perspective about what being a slave and not being able to receive education would be like. This book is memorable and I think it deserves a lesson that would be equally memorable to my students.