I just placed many of the African-American collection out for displays throughout the library in honor of Black History Month. One of my favorite books is Minty a Story of Young Harriet Tubman by Alan Schroeder and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney.
I like this book because it tells about Harriet Tubman as a little girl, when she went by her childhood name, Minty. Harriet Tubman was stubborn. In fact her daddy said, “If you head is in the lion’s mouth, it’s best to pat him a little. Your head’s in his mouth, Minty, but you sure ain’t doin’ any pattin’. Youre’ just fixin’ to get your head bit off.”
She was known as a “problem slave”. In Minty, we get a bird’s eye view of what her childhood was like. We learn about the stories she told to her rag doll, how she learn to skin a squirrel and read a tree. While being stubborn and sometimes bold, these character traits helped her lead the Underground Railroad and rescue hundreds of slaves.
This biography reads like a story. Schroeder states in the beginning that there is some ficitionalize scenes but he wanted to give an account of her early childhood, something that there is not much written about. He uses researched facts to tell a story about one of the most important women of this Civil War era.
The book includes an author’s note and Pinkney’s watercolor and colored pencil illustrations complement the text wondrously.
Title: Minty a Story of Young Harriet Tubman
Author: Alan Schroeder
Published: 1996
Pages: unpaged
Reading Level: All
Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0-8037-1888-8
Source of Book: Library collection
Wild About Nature has the nonfiction round up this week. Here over and check it out.
Happy Reading.
MsMac
Check It Out 