|
|
 |
|
Click Image to View Larger
Overground Railroad
Lesa Cline-Ransome
Item #:
9780823438730
Price:
$18.99
Climbing aboard the New York bound Silver Meteor train, Ruth
Ellen embarks upon a journey toward a new life up North— one
she can't begin to imagine. Stop by stop, the perceptive young
narrator tells her journey in poems, leaving behind the cotton
fields and distant Blue Ridge mountains.
Each leg of the trip brings new revelations as scenes out the
window of folks working in fields give way to the Delaware
River, the curtain that separates the colored car is removed,
and glimpses of the freedom and opportunity the family hopes
to find come into view. As they travel, Ruth Ellen reads from
the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
reflecting on how her journey mirrors her own— until finally
the train arrives at its last stop, New York's Penn Station,
and the family heads out into a night filled with bright
lights, glimmering stars, and new possibilities.
James Ransome's mixed-media illustrations are full of bold
color and texture, bringing Ruth Ellen's journey to life, from
sprawling cotton fields to cramped train cars, the wary
glances of other passengers and the dark forest through which
Frederick Douglass traveled towards freedom. Overground
Railroad is, as Lesa notes, a story "of people who were
running from and running to at the same time," and it's a
story that will stay with readers long after the final pages.
Book, 48
pages.
|
|
|
|
)