Henry's Freedom Box

Author:

Ellen Levine

Illustrator:

Kadir Nelson

Published by:

Scholastic Press

First Published:

1 Jan 2007

Ideal for readers aged

6-9y

My Review

With its lifelike illustrations and emotive story, this is a great way of introducing a topic on the slave trade. It's a quick read aloud, but one that really packs a punch. Ellen Levine has told the story with all its emotion intact but there is no brutality or corporal punishment in the story, meaning that it can be read at all ages, once children are ready to understand that the emotional trauma of being separated from parents, and the powerlessness of slaves to be masters of their own fates were brutality enough.

Heads Up!

As you'd expect in a story of slavery, Henry is taken from his mother when a child, and then loses his own wife and children when they are sold on at the slave market.

Publisher Review

A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist. Henry Brown doesn't know how old he is. Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream seems farther away than ever when he is torn from his family and put to work in a warehouse. Henry grows up and marries, but he is again devastated when his family is sold at the slave market. Then one day, as he lifts a crate at the warehouse, he knows exactly what he must do: He will mail himself to the North. After an arduous journey in the crate, Henry finally has a birthday -- his first day of freedom.