Illustrator: E. B. LewisFor: Kids - School age
Published: 2009
Rating: 4.5
Read: 1/31/09 B&N
Endpapers: Med. Sage Blue
In rhyming couplets we accompany a slave - who is able to remove the chain from his leg, but not the clamp from his ankle - to his freedom. Along the way he encounters a motherless child who is being left behind for slave-hunters to find, so he takes it upon himself to take the young boy with him. Then he forages for two...to the Land of the Free. There, the child touches the ring on his ankle and it falls away. This is when it gets weirdly religious - "How, dear child, did you set me free?/ I'm from the Lord. You cared for me."
Hmmm. Then I turned the page and got my explanation for this curious ending: AUTHOR'S NOTE: "This poem is a retelling of a story in the sacred literature of Buddha about his disciple, the Elephant Ananda, as related by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, Kim. I moved its setting and language to anther time, as I believe its them to be universal." Okay, that explains that. Maybe its time for me to investigat Buddha a little, 'cause I have no idea about this Elephant Ananda......intriguing.....
I just read The Negro Speaks of Rivers, also illustrated by E. B. Lewis. Wow. His dark, full page illustrations are emotional and inspiring.
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