Curtis, Christopher P. 2007. ELIJAH OF BUXTON. New York, NY. Scholastic Press. ISBN 9780439023443
Plot Summary
Elijah is an eleven year old boy who lives in Buxton, Canada, settlement made up of runaway slaves. Elijah was the first free-born person in Buxton but, "it aint' something [he] ever boast[s] on." Elijah is a "fra-gile boy" which exasperates his mother who tells him, "a coward die a thousand deaths, a brave boy don't die but once," which is not much comfort to poor Elijah. When a man from the settlement gets swindled out of the money he was going to use to buy back his family, Elijah sets out on an adventure to America to get the money back from "preacher" the money was entrusted to. He meets a family of slaves who are in the process of running away and gets a view of slavery and fear he has never seen before. He grows up a lot on his trip down to America but still struggles with understanding what grown-ups mean when they talk at times. "This woman was treating me like I was growned! She was acting like I could understand what she was meaning on the back side of her words!" Elijah makes it back home to Buxton with a new sense of maturity and a slave baby he saved from certain death.
Critical Analysis
From the author of THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM and BUD, NOT BUDDY, comes this intriguing first-person narrative, written in vivid dialect about a young boy and his coming of age struggle. The history of Buxton is told throughout the story in what seems to mostly be a collection of short stories about Buxton and Elijah. The story is somewhat slow to begin and the dialect may slow some readers down, though it did not bother me. Elijah's parents made it very clear to him how privileged he was to always be free and to live in Buxton.
Review Excerpts
Coretta Scott King Award Winner
Newberry Honor Book 2008
Review in Publisher's Weekly: "Humor abounds"
Connections
*Use with a unit on slavery or freedom
*Use with a unit on the Underground Railroad
*Class could research who Fredercik Douglas was
*Compare Buxton's Liberty Bell with America's
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