The Underground Railroad

Ashby, R (2002). The Underground Railroad. Smart Apple Media: Minnesota.

This nonfiction book is comprised of four chapters.  The first is about the history of slavery.  When and how is started, why it continued, how it created and effected the farming society of the south.  The second part was about the anti-slavery movement led by the abolitionists and Quakers.  An interesting fact that I had never thought of before was that Northerners didn't like abolitionists.  They felt that black people were going to steal their jobs.  The third chapter of the book is about the Underground Railroad and  how it worked.  It also chronicles seven famous slaves and their stories.  One of which is Henry "Box" Brown, whose story I had never heard of until I read Henry's Freedom Box.The final chapter of this book is about life after slavery for blacks in America.  It notes the difficulty and the challenges that they faced.

This book is filled with great historical facts that would be good to help children build them schema of the Underground Railroad and slavery both before and during the study of slavery.  Because it tells of the facts it is a great companion to read in conjunction with the picture books that are fiction but based on true stories.