Elijah of Buxton

What an awesome book this is! Christopher Paul Curtis has a knack for capturing the in-between innocence mixed with growing understanding of the 11-13 age range. In many children's books, the things that the child characters imagine are always worse than reality, but Curtis's characters don't have this comfort. They have the joys and laughter of childhood, but their challenges are serious, not contrived by adults to educate, but actual and real.

Curtis also gives his characters ample time and opportunity to make mistakes, reflect, and grow, which I love.

Another slam-dunk selection from the Build Your Library booklist, Level 5.

Elijah Freeman was the first child born free in Canada. His other claim to fame was that, as an infant, he had thrown up on Frederick Douglass while the famous orator was visiting the settlement of former slaves in Buxton, Ontario. Buxton is right across the river from Detroit. It’s 1859 and eleven-year-old Elijah sometimes finds it hard to understand how some words or ways of talking will make his elders fly into an unexpected rage. It’s because he’s never known slavery. He can see the physical scars that it’s left on many of the adults, but he can’t see the emotional ones, until an unplanned trip to Michigan gives him a frightening first-hand view.

Curtis’s always strong sense of humor and his ability to accurately see and show more report from a child’s point of view makes Elijah of Buxton by turns laugh-out-loud funny and icily frightening, with a bright bit of Hope at the end of the tale. show less

I really enjoyed this one. What an interesting and different perspective on slavery. What Elijah's parents have told him about former slaves is insightful, sensitive, and seems very realistic. In the children's playing slavers and abolitionists (and Elijah's revelation about it), CPC even addresses the tendency to soften slavery in depictions for children. The last few chapters are truly haunting, and yet I wouldn't hesitate to have a 9 or 10 year old read this book. CPC has struck just the right balance of acknowledging and showing the horrors, but without making it too overwhelming for his audience.

One of my favorite narrative tricks is when an author uses a very limited first person viewpoint and is still able to let the reader know show more more than the narrator. It's one of the things I love about [b: Walk Two Moons|53496|Walk Two Moons|Sharon Creech|http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1389035862s/53496.jpg|1237212] (among others), and CPC does it so very well here.

I will definitely be recommending this one to the sixth graders, who study both civil rights and sustainability. I will be very interested to hear their responses to it. show less

It's 1860 and Elijah is the first free-born child in the settlement of Buxton in Canada and as such you would think he'd get a little respect, but instead everyone tells him how fragile he is and boy do they love to tell the story of how he threw up on Mr. Frederick Douglass even though Elijah was just a baby when it happened. Elijah enjoys his life - he has a best friend, Cooter, to get in trouble with, he gets to go rock fishing on his favorite mule, Old Flapjack, and he gets to work with Mr. Leroy helping to clear a neighbor's land. Now that he's almost 12, Elijah thinks it's about time people realize he's pretty much grown up even if some things are still pretty confusing. For one thing, his Ma tells him he "has to respect what show more growned folks say" one minute and the next she's telling him "not to believe some of the things growned folks tell" you. How's a boy to know which things are which? As the year goes on and Elijah learns more about the world outside of Buxton - especially about slavery, he starts to see that being grown up is much more complicated than he thought. show less

Confession: I've never read any Christopher Paul Curtis before! Not even Bud, Not Buddy! So I decided it was time to finally rectify that, and I'm glad I did. This book was funny and charming, with an incredibly likable narrator. That said, it didn't shy away from sensitively portraying the real horrors of slavery and the toll that it takes on the human spirit, building up to a heartbreaking but uplifting conclusion.

I also loved the setting -- a 19th century freed slaves colony in Canada -- which was new to me and well-portrayed.

This book is so breathtakingly beautiful that I'm at a loss to adequately write a review that would provide justice.

Christopher Paul Curtis is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. A three-time Newbery award winner, his works shine like a bright beacon of hope for any aspiring writer. A 13-year assembly line worker in Flint Michigan, Curtis became a fledgling writer during breaks in the factory. With the encouragement of his wife, he took a year away from his job and spent his days in libraries writing and researching the background for his stories while learning how to submit his work to publishing companies.

Never returning to the factory, he became a highly successful writer. His books Bud, Not Buddy, The Watsons Go To Birmingham show more and Elijah of Buxton are filled with incredibly likable characters you would love to meet. When reading his stories, the characters seem to jump off the pages and become vibrantly alive.

Elijah of Buxton is set in pre Civil War 1860. Buxton Ontario provides the setting for the marvelous character of Elijah Freeman whose claim to fame is that he is the first child born free in the settlement.

Buxton, Ontario was indeed an actual community in the Canadian wilderness founded by Rev. William King, a white man from Philadelphia, PA who was severely critical of slavery and empowered to put his feelings into actions.

In all his books, Curtis deftly weaves historical fact with fictional characters. This marvelous book is packed full of humor, wit and seriousness. Without over bearing preaching and proselytizing, Curtis paints a vivid portrait of the joy of freedom and the brutality of slavery.

According to his mother, Elijah is a "fra-gile" child, quickly prone to tears and emotion. When The Right Rev. Zephariah W. Connerly III leaves Buxton with the money that Elijah's adult friend Mr. Leroy saved in order to purchase his family from slavery, Elijah's fragility is augmented with a keen sense of indignation and courage.

Traveling with Mr. Leroy to America in search of the crooked scoundrel, Elijah witnesses the brutality of slavery and learns first hand the extreme horror his parents fled.

In the end, Elijah keeps his wonderful fragility and learns that his sensitivity provides the strength needed when facing adversity.

If you read one of my recommendations this year, please let it be this book!

This is a powerful symphony of hope and a testimony to the power of the human soul striving to be alive and free!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED show less

Elijah is a freeborn child living in the Canadian settlement of Buxton, made up entirely of freedmen and women and their children. He has always known a relatively comfortable life with no more serious worries than whether his teacher would tell his parents he wasn’t doing very well in Latin. That changes when a flashy “preacher” steals money that Elijah’s friend Mr. Leroy was saving to buy his family out of captivity—and Mr. Leroy needs Elijah’s help to go after him. In Michigan, Elijah comes face-to-face with the horrors that his parents and the other grownups in Buxton knew and will learn both what he can do—and what he can’t.

The novel starts out simply enough, but once the Preacher steals Mr. Leroy’s money, the show more narrative takes on a pretty dark tone for a children’s novel, with references to beatings (to death), recapture of escaped slaves, families torn asunder, and suicide as a desirable alternative. The ending can’t, and doesn’t, make it all right, but Elijah does have the safety of his Canadian home and loving parents to return to. show less