Product Description

In the days before the Civil War, a young enslaved girl and her older brother help slaves escape to freedom using the Underground Railroad quilt code.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #699271 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

From School Library Journal

Gr 2-4-A story of the Underground Railroad as told by a former slave to her great niece many years later. After Lucy's parents are sold, her older brother, Albert, tells her about the Underground Railroad. He explains that different patchwork quilt patterns provide secret messages to help escaping slaves and the two of them become involved in helping others find their way to freedom. After a serious beating, Albert runs away and Lucy doesn't know his fate. After the Civil War, she becomes a teacher and marries. Then one day, she receives a scrap of fabric in the mail from her brother in Canada. He is alive and well and bringing his family to visit her. Then readers realize that the child hearing the story is Albert's great granddaughter. Vaughn's well-written story is told with a modified colloquial language that hints at the unschooled plantation speech but is easily understood by today's readers. Johnson's expressive acrylic paintings are rich in color and emotion. An author's note explains the quilt code of a number of patterns that are pictured on the back cover.

Eunice Weech, M. L. King Elementary School, Urbana, IL

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Ages 5-8. A young girl listens to her Great-Aunt Lucy tell stories of life during slavery: Lucy's brother Albert becomes a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and Lucy assists him. Beaten by his suspicious owners, Albert reluctantly leaves his lame sister, and Lucy never knows if he has made it North. The Civil War ends, but Lucy isn't completely happy until many years later when she receives a message from Albert, alive and well in Canada. Part of that message is a small quilted square, a remembrance of the story's centerpiece, the sack of quilts that Albert brings to Lucy during their slave days. Each quilt pattern, designed with a secret code, gave information to slaves as they made their escape on the Underground Railroad. Although these signals are decoded in the text and more fully in an afterword, it's not always clear just how the pattern directed the runaways. A jarring note comes in the book's second spread when Great-Aunt Lucy says, "When I was about your age, I was a slave." Up until then, the story has seemed contemporary. On the plus side, the quilts-as-signals element is a fascinating sidelight to the history of the Underground Railroad, and the acrylic paintings, filled with both drama and warmth, speak of families, present and past. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

It's up to the siblings to help slaves escape to freedom
Set in the years before the Civil War is this story of Lucy and her brother, whose parents have been sold as slaves. It's up to the siblings to help slaves escape to freedom using a 'quilt code' by the Underground Railroad: when he brother escapes as well, Lucy wonders if their family will ever unite. Good reading skills will lend to an appreciation of this pre-war saga.