Eliza's Freedom Road: An Underground Railroad Diary

ISBN: 1481498320

Author: Nolen, Jerdine

Condition: New

Christopher Award-winning author Jerdine Nolen imagines a young womans journey from slavery to freedom in this intimate and powerful novel that was named an ALA/YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults nominee.It is 1854 in Alexandria, Virginia. Elizas mother has been sold away and Eliza is left as a slave on a Virginia farm. It is Abbey, the cook, who looks after Eliza, when she isnt taking care of the Mistress. Eliza has only the quilt her mother left her and the stories her mother told to keep her mothers memory close.When the Mistresss health begins to fail and Eliza overhears the Master talk of the Slave sale auction and of Eliza being traded, she takes to the night. She follows the path and the words of the farmhand Old Joe: Travel the night. Sleep the dayGo east. Keep your back to the setting of the sun. Come to the safe house with a candlelight in the windowThat gal, Harriet, shell take you.All the while, Eliza recites the stories her mother taught her as she travels along her freedom road from Marys Land to Pennsylvania to Freedoms Gate in St. Catharines, Canada, where she finds not only her freedom but also more than she could have hoped for.