Module 6: January's Sparrow

When composing this blog, I had the most difficult time choosing which book to review.  I would like to mention The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs, Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears, and Little Pea with the respect and honor that these books deserve, as well.  History lover that I am, I decided to go with what was, for me, the most compelling of stories.

Citation
Polacco, P.  (2009).  January's Sparrow.  New York: Philomel.

Summary
Unwilling residents of the Giltner Plantation in Kentucky, Sadie Crosswhite and her family have taken in January Drumm, a young man sold from his mother when he was young.  After January attempts to run away, Giltner has him cruelly beaten and left for dead by his overseers.  This, in combination with a plan to sell Sadie's brothers off, prompts the Crosswhite family to flee the plantation via the Underground Railroad.  They end up in Marshall, Michigan, where they settle somewhat uneasily; the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, should officials choose to enforce it, dictates that even runaway slaves in free states must be returned to their owners.  The community of Marshall rises up to protect the Crosswhites when Giltner's cronies show up, and the Crosswhites have the unexpected gift of being reunited with January, who had carved a beautiful little sparrow for Sadie back on the plantation.

Impression
I could not put this book down. Prefaced by January's point of view, this story hooked me through its depiction of the courageous Crosswhite family.  While slavery and Jim Crow fast recede into the past, the importance of remembering "man's inhumanity to man" (in the words of Robert Burns)  in the United States as an historic reality strikes me as vital to the preservation of freedom for all.  In fact, National Public Radio carried a piece this week about the groundbreaking for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.  Both President Obama and (Librarian!) former First Lady Laura Bush were present, demonstrating bipartisan support for its establishment.  The piece stated that it will not be long until veterans of the Civil Rights struggle and people who remember drinking from "colored" water fountains have departed this world.  While I enjoyed the illustrations in general, I would agree with Rochman below who said that the "characters' expressions in the colored-pencil-and-marker artwork sometimes overstate and simplify the complex emotions in the words."  However, I suppose that one could say equally that the emotions depicted speak of raw and visceral feelings unsuited to understatement.  Still, I can't help but feel that the luminous illustrations of E.B. Lewis (whose illustrations of Langston Hughes' The Negro Speaks of Rivers leave me dazzled and inspired) might be better suited to Polacco's well-turned words.  As Hamlet might say, "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd."

Review
Rochman, H.  (2009).  January's sparrow.  Booklist, 106(4), 52.  Retrieved from Children's Literature Comprehensive Database
Told from the viewpoint of Sadie Crosswhite, a young child who was born into slavery, this dramatic picture book is based on true events that took place in Marshall, Michigan, near where Polacco lives today. The narrative begins with shocking brutality on a Kentucky plantation: Sadie and her family watch while her foster brother, January, is whipped and kicked to death for trying to escape to freedom. With the threat of being auctioned off, the family members run away that night, bound for Canada, and the unframed pictures show their journey on the Underground Railroad, pursued by the slave catchers with savage dogs, until they find shelter in Marshall. Will they be safe there? Are there spies? Sadie goes to school and makes friends, but then the slave catchers come, and so does a surprising visitor. The characters’ melodramatic expressions in the colored-pencil-and-marker artwork sometimes overstate and simplify the complex emotions in the words. Still, Sadie’s first-person narrative, in modified dialect, captures the terror, excitement, and hope of the powerful history. Grades 3-6

Suggestion
Without a doubt, this picture book would be well-suited to an older audience.  Though Rochman's recommendation right spans grades 3-6 as a start, I could see this book being used with even older audiences in American history classes.  Kenneth Clark famously said, "History is ourselves," but so often the personal stories become lost in the saga of "big events."  Bringing slavery and the experience of a runaway family on the Underground Railroad down to the personal level of the Crosswhite family makes it more attainable and less likely to be dismissed categorically.  I would suggest this book for an introductory read-aloud to American history classes (in Texas, taught in 5th, 8th, and either 9th or 11th grades) for units relating to slavery, abolition, and the Civil War.  Older audiences might be more interested in delving into how causes of the Civil War were varied and the reasons for fighting even more so, but how the existence of slavery in the States truly created "a house divided."