Finding Freedom: The Story of Jonas by Maurine F.Dahlberg

"Son, your Master William may not put shackles on your feet, but as long as he keeps you ignorant, he's got shackles on your mind, and they're every bit as binding."

It's 1859, and thirteen-year-old Jonas has spent his young life as a house servant on a hemp farm in Missouri. As slave masters go, William Hooper is better than most, but all the slaves on the farm fear falling under the control of his ne'er-do-well only son Percy, who covers his ineptness and cowardice with bluster and as much brutality as his father will tolerate in his interactions with the farm's servants.

When the Hoopers agree to fund Percy's expedition to the Kansas Territory gold fields, it is Jonas' misfortune to be sent along as his personal servant and cook. But as Jonas and Percy Hooper join a wagon train to head west, Jonas meets up with wagonmaster Jeremiah Quincy and Dr. Henry Yoder and his young daughter Sky, who do not share his master's views on slavery. As Jonas displays his skills as camp cook and oxen driver, he earns the respect of Quincy, whose encouragement helps him to value his own intelligence and abilities. As they work together, Sky secretly begins to teach Jonas to read in violation of the Hoopers' rules, and in his own mind Jonas begins to think of escaping among the abolitionists in the Kansas Territory.

When Percy's foolish behavior leads him to be expelled from the wagon train, though, Jonas fears that he may die on the trail from the careless brutality or incompetence of his master. At last Jonas realizes that his only hope is to flee at night and try to hook up with a sympathetic wagon master ahead on the Santa Fe trail. Traveling at night through Indian territory and among gold seekers who are more than willing to give him over to slave bounty hunters, hunger, fear, and despair are Jonas' only companions until he finds surprising allies among the native Americans along the trail.

The Story of Jonas is a skillfully written historical novel which, coupling a gripping adventure story with a realistic portrayal of slave life in the early West, provides middle readers with a deeper understanding of this pivotal period of our history.

Freedom To Be Had: Night Running by Elisa Carbone

James has made up his mind to run, to leave Master Graham's Virginia farm and his hound dog Zeus behind. Zeus is his hunting buddy, but he's too noisy, too fidgety and too quick to bay and bark at any sound to risk taking along.

Confiding in his friend Levi and urging him to come along, by the full moon James steals to their meeting place, only to find his master's men ready to seize him. Waiting for Master Graham's judgment until morning, his drunken guards fall asleep, and with Zeus' help, James frees himself from the ropes which bind him to a stool and makes his escape.

But Zeus is too noisy a traveling companion for a boy who is sure to be followed by slave hunters, and at one point James almost brings himself to club Zeus to death to protect his own life. Then the slave catchers' hounds are heard baying on their trail, and Zeus and James join together to kill the pursuing hounds and keep on running.

For five nights James and Zeus run north, with Zeus' hunting skills feeding them by day, until at last they reach the Ohio River. Unable to swim, James finds a dilapidated canoe, and knowing that it will not float both himself and the dog, he bids his faithful friend good-bye.

"You been a good dog, Zeus," he said, "better than I knew a dog could be." He sniffed and wiped his nose with Zeus' ear.

"Now you be free on this side of the river, and I'll be free on the other side."

But as the old canoe begins to sink, Zeus, who has been swimming behind, comes forward to pull James safely to the Ohio side of the river. Reviving onshore, James is fortunately found by a Quaker farmer, who takes in both the runaway and his skinny hound dog. There the two find a home where Zeus happily lives out his life with James.

While doing extensive research on her acclaimed novel Stealing Freedom, Carbone discovered the true story of James Smith, the main character of Night Running: How James Escaped with the Help of His Faithful Dog. Her author's note tells the full story of James, who went on to educate himself, buy a farm in Ohio, and following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, again fleeing Master Graham's slave catchers to make his home in Canada, where he lived and served as a minister, always remembering to tell the story of the faithful dog who made his free life possible.

For Black History Month or anytime, this exciting true adventure, beautifully illustrated by E. B. Lewis, provides an exceptional medium to introduce elementary students to the realities of slave life and the Underground Railroad in American history.