But, doing tomorrow's homework is going to be darn hard tonight with that book looking at me!
Also the new James CD, Hey Ma is supposedly out in the US now. Except no one actually has it. Double poo.
Anyway, a review:
Elijah Freeman is the first free-born in the town of Buxton, in Canada, just over the river from Detroit. It's a refuge for escaped and freed US slaves.
There isn't much of a plot--highly episodic mostly about a little boy doing little boy things. The jacket flap says there is a plot. It says something along the lines of Elijah going to America after some steals his friends money that was going to be used to buy his family out of slavery. That does happen, but that's like, the last 80 pages of a 342 page book.
I think I might be the only person in America and beyond who isn't totally in love with this book.
I'm not a *huge* fan of episodic plot. Also, if there isn't an overreaching plot, it probably could have been half the length. Also, it was so episodic, it almost read like a collection of short stories. There's nothing wrong with this at all, just not my cup of tea.
I may be the only person in the world to say this, but Elijah vaguely reminds me of Junie B. He's kinda hyper and after reading for awhile, I had the same feeling I get after reading Junie B. of "Miss Jennie needs a nap and adult time." Reading Elijah talk to me was like trying to keep up with him in real life. *Whew*
It's written in dialect, which makes it a wee bit of a reading challenge. I think kids as young as 2nd or 3rd grade would like this, and the plot lends itself to a great read-aloud chapter-at-bedtime setup.
I would have looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooved this book when I was in 5th grade, and really, Curtis is writing for 5th graders, not me.
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