Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

Bud, Not Buddy bordered on too cutesy for me, so while I was looking forward to reading Elijah of Buxton because of its rave reviews I was still a tad skeptical. Elijah is an historical fiction piece of a young African-American boy and his learnings about himself, his history and his future. It's written in first-person with a similar lilting dialect as Buddy. But after having read both it's easy to see why Elijah stands out and why Curtis continues to be an educator's dream for presenting historically thoughtful characters and stories.

Elijah is the first child born in Buxton, Canada, a settlement established by freed and escaped slaves. He has spent the past eleven years knowing nothing but freedom and living in community with loved ones. He goes to school, does his chores at the barn and runs the woods with his best friend Cooter. Elijah is incredibly gullible and his mother is constantly accusing him of being fra-gile; she's all but given up hope that he will learn how to act growned-up. Each chapter, then, is like a little vignette in which Eljiah slowly learns the ropes of life. He really wants to understand this language of adults and fortunately he has no shortage of opportunities.

What stands out to me the most is how I felt like I was learning about the overt and hidden struggles of slavery all over again. Fresh. Don't we all grow up studying slavery, the Underground Railroad, being "sold down the river", plantation mentalities, etc. You of course have empathy, but it still feels like a history lesson and not a reality. Perhaps it's desensitization or perhaps it takes more stories like "Elijah" to truly put you in the reality of that history lesson. The book's messages are clear, but theydon't beat you over the head, don't manipulate your emotions, don't make you feel anything but like a human being having compassion for another human being.

Elijah is not without its emotion-provoking moments, though. The reader truly runs the gamut, but in bits and pieces. Numerous literary elements unique to slavery are there - abolitionism, Underground Railroad, slaves' scars/burns from whipping, slavecatchers, the N-word, slave families being separated, chains, fear, freedom, "Massa", wrongful deaths - but these experiences are embedded in context without the reminder that we're supposed to be sympathetic. It's assumed that we're sympathetic, or we're not, whatever. This isn't one little boy's first realization that he's different and here's his struggle to overcome adversity. This is life. And it's damn fine storytelling.

Questions: I do wonder, however, if it's a cop-out that we get these reflections second-hand from a "freeborn". Can we really find out about the experience of slavery from someone who never went through it? Is it a story about slavery...or freedom? Maybe, like the Author's Note implies, it's just about Buxton and Elijah. I also wonder how this story would have been received if it was not written by Curtis. Would the dialect seem offensive if it was written by a non-African American author? Or the church scenes or the women comforting Mrs. Holton scenes stereotypical?

I had a small issue with the consistency of intensity; it grew in intensity in the last six chapters, a very short distance from the end. Once I got a taste of those last six chapters I wanted more! One of the most incredible scenes I've ever read in children's literature was of Elijah stealthily entering a barn and finding five captured slaves in chains. Because he doesn't know what he's looking at in the dark, Elijah describes them as "haints" and demons scared to death that they'll notice him there. He berates himself for being fra-gile. Slowly he realizes they're chained slaves, humans in thick shackles and eventually all he can think about is trying to save them but knowing what an impossibility that is. What a metaphor for a youth's introduction into the usually protected, too-scary adult world. It wasn't Amistad, it wasn't Uncle Tom's Cabin, rather it was Elijah's fears working themselves out as best he knew how. Such complexity in a dynamic character is enticing and, like I said, I wanted more.

This book is recommended for ages 9-12. With the happy-go-lucky Scholastic Press hardback cover I can see that; however, with the darker creepy woods paperback cover I think you could entice more middle schoolers. I also think that this book should absolutely be encouraged with third/fourth grade advanced readers, especially as a companion to learning about slavery and the Civil War. The storytelling feels contemporary, meaning a 21st-century student who has been spoonfed "love everybody, we're all equal" would be able to relate to the mood of the book and vignettes, but would be receiving great insights of what they're reading in their history text. I would have loved to have this book be one of my early associations with learning about the experiences of slaves and slavery and freedom.