Escape from Slavery: The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Words

Escape from Slavery: The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Words
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A microcosm of the contradictions of slavery

Escape from Slavery: The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Words
Frederick Douglass
Manufacturer: Knopf Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Across Five Aprils

Brady Brady

ASIN: 0679846522
Release Date: 1993-12-28

Book Description

Illus. in black-and-white. Opening note by Coretta Scott King. For the first time, the most important account ever written of a childhood in slavery is accessible to young readers. From his days as a young boy on a plantation to his first months as a freeman in Massachusetts, here are Douglass's own firsthand experiences vividly recounted--expertly excerpted and powerfully illustrated.

Customer Reviews:

A microcosm of the contradictions of slavery.......2001-06-20

With so much of the sordid history of slavery in the United States behind us, many of the major wounds have been healed. However, that does not mean that we should forget what it did to people. Slavery turned otherwise kindly people into beasts. Eventually, it was the wedge that drove two segments of the U.S. into overt warfare.
Frederick Douglass was one of the most articulate voices opposed to slavery among free blacks. A natural writer, he describes his life in slavery and how dehumanizing it was. The time he spent in slavery was a microcosm of most of the contradictions of slavery. Taken from his mother at a young age, he knew nothing about his white father. A slave was property to their owner, somewhat on a par with a horse or cattle. And yet, many slaveholders fathered children with their female slaves. Many slaves were severely beaten or killed for disobedience. Chivalrous gentleman who would not tolerate a man beating a horse would speak approval of similar actions being performed on a defenseless slave. Douglass was beaten many times, even to the point of possible permanent injury, for actions that were simply human. Finally, there was the bizarre spectacle of slaves and free blacks living in the same areas, sometimes even being relatives by blood or marriage. The woman who eventually became his wife was a free woman while he was a slave, joining him after he escaped to freedom.
It does us all good to be reminded how destructive slavery was to the structure of American society. Douglass lived on both sides of the issue and his story of the slave years are a powerful tale of human destruction. Written for older children, this book should be required reading for graduation from high school.

Crispus Attucks: Black Leader of Colonial Patriots (Childhood of Famous Americans Series.)

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Crispus Attucks: Black Leader of Colonial Patriots (Childhood of Famous Americans Series.)
Dharathula H. Millender
Manufacturer: Aladdin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0020418108

A Child From The Village (Middle East Literature in Translation)

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menior of Important Islamicist Egyptian Writer

A Child From The Village (Middle East Literature in Translation)
Sayyid Qutb
Manufacturer: Syracuse University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0815608055

Customer Reviews:

menior of Important Islamicist Egyptian Writer.......2004-12-30

A Child From The Village by Sayyid Qutb, edited, translated, and with an introduction by John Calvert and William Shepard (Middle East Literature in Translation: Syracuse University Press) Although the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb is not a household name in the United States, he is well known throughout the Islamic World as a seminal thinker in the Islamist movement, influential as far away as Pakistan and Malaysia. A member of the Islamic Brotherhood, he was jailed by Gamal Abdul Nasser's government as early as 1954. He became one of the most uncompromising voices of the movement we now call Islamism and is best known perhaps for his book, Ma'lam fi al-tariq (Milestones, 1965), after publication of which he was accused of conspiring against Egyptian president Nasser and arrested. He was executed in 1966.
This memoir tells of Qutb's childhood in the village of Musha in Upper Egypt. Qutb documents the era between 1912 and 1918, a time immensely influencial in the creation of modern Egypt. Written with much tenderness toward childhood memories, it has become a classic in modern Arabic autobiography. Qutb offers a clear picture of Egyptian village life in the early twentieth century, its customs and lore, educational system, religious festivals, relations with the central government, and the struggle to modernize and retain its identity. In their rendering of the work into English, translators John Calvert and William Shepard capture the beauty and intensity of Qutb's prose.
A Child from the Village was written just prior to Qutb's conversion to the Islamist cause and reflects his concerns for social justice. Interest in Qutb's writing has increased in the West since Islamism has emerged as a power on the world scene.
message. Despite its tone of nostalgia, A Child from the Village paints a picture of the Egyptian countryside that is not entirely happy. The specter of peasant indebtedness and loss of land haunts the pages of the autobiography, as does disease caused by unhygienic conditions and the peasants' recourse to folk remedies and barber-surgeons rather than scientifically trained physicians. The joys of Ramadan, birth ceremonies, and other festive occasions are juxtaposed to death, tragedy, and the laments of women whose families patiently endure hard lives. Captives of poverty and ignorance, the peasants of Qutb's autobiography toil endlessly in their fields with little expectation that their lives will improve. They are the victims of the few large landowners and politicians who controlled Egypt's wealth. According to Tetz Rooke, who examined a wide range of Arabic childhood autobiographies, the critical portrayal of rural life found A Child from the Village represents a "break with the tendency towards pastoral idealization which dominated much of the first Egyptian creative writing concerned with country life." lt may thus be seen as a "precursor of the later Egyptian novel that embraces the subject of the village with a true-to-life, descriptive intent such as al-Ard [The earth, 1953] by 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi (1920-1987)."4 In the context of the mid-1940s, Qutb's book manifests a growing awareness among Egypt's intelligentsia of socioeconomic issues. It was during this period, for example, that dissident elements within the Wafd founded the Wafdist Vanguard in order to influence the party leadership in a leftist direction.
Implicitly and sometimes explicitly in the book, Qutb advocates the need for reform and modernization at the village level. Qutb believed that the introduction of modern schooling in Musha was a step in the right direction, but he also believed that there was need for many more improvements, especially in the areas of land reform and health care. In his view, the Egyptian government was the obvious agent to undertake the necessary reforms, but too often the state's ameliorative efforts were imposed with a heavy hand or else were ill conceived. Qutb provides a harrowing account of a government operation, probably staged shortly after World War I, to confiscate all weapons belonging to the villagers of Asyut Province as a precondition for its integration into the structure of the State on a more thorough basis. He describes how soldiers, having surrounded the village, brutally interrogated the peasants, at one point firing bullets over the heads of the assembled village elders. Events such as this reinforced the peasants' traditional distrust of a governmental authority that in the past periodically subjected them to corvée labor. Elsewhere in the book, Qutb documents, sometimes with humor, the unwelcome and often inexpert intrusions of various government officials into the affairs of the community. We are introduced to medical officials, coroners, judges, and others, all of whom attempt to order and police the countryside in ways that make sense to the State but not to the villagers. In much the same way as the Egyptian writer Tawfiq al-Hakim's novella Diary of a Country Prosecutor, A Child from the Village documents the gulf in understanding that existed between urban officialdom and the dwellers of the countryside, the difference being that in Qutb's book we are provided with the perspective of the peas-ants rather than that of a government official. Qutb appears to argue that if modernization in Egypt's countryside is to be effective, it must take into account the sensibilities and social and economic realities of its inhabitants.
Within two years of the publication of A Child from the Village, Qutb adopted the Islamist position upon which his fame rests. Whatever the exact reasons for his ideological change, the significant point is that Qutb's early Islamist writings display many of the same basic concerns for social justice and national community that figure in his secular writings, including A Child from the Village. A discussion of the ways in which Qutb grafted the symbols and doctrines of the Qur'an is beyond the scope of this introduction. What can be said is that A Child from the Village illuminates an important element of the context out of which Qutb's Islamism emerged.

I See You, I See Myself: The Young Life of Jacob Lawrence

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I See You, I See Myself: The Young Life of Jacob Lawrence
Deba Foxley Leach , and Suzanne Wright
Manufacturer: Phillips Collection
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 094304426X

Book Description

I See You, I See Myself, written for young adult readers, examines the early experiences and choices that led Jacob Lawrence to become an artist. In bold colors and precise language, the book describes how the break up of his parents, a period of foster care, reunification with his mother, brother, and sister in Harlem, and the influence of other adults in his community shaped the decisions Lawrence made about his art and his life. The hurdles that he faced -- moving, parent separation, and discrimination -- are ones that challenge many children today. I See You, I See Myself describes how the choices one makes in dealing with these challenges start to shape a personís life. It includes 65 color illustrations of Lawrenceís work, accompanied by photographs documenting his early experiences in the Harlem community.

Book Description

THE CHILDHOODS OF FAMOUS AMERICANS SERIES

One of the most popular series ever published for young Americans, these classics have been praised alike by parents, teachers, and librarians. With these lively inspiring, fictionalized biographies -- easily read by children of eight and up -- today's youngster is swept right into history.

ABIGAIL ADAMS

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

NEIL ARMSTRONG

CRISPUS ATTUCKS

CLARA BARTON

ELIZABETH BLACKWELL

DANIEL BOONE

BUFFALO BILL

WILL CLARK

ROBERTO CLEMENTE

DAVY CROCKETT

WALT DISNEY

THOMAS A. EDISON

ALBERT EINSTEIN

HENRY FORD

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

LOU GEHRIG

HARRY HOUDINI

LANGSTON HUGHES

TOM JEFFERSON

HELEN KELLER

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

ROBERT E.LEE

MERTWETHER LEWIS

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

MARY TODD LINCOLN

THURGOOD MARSHALL

JOHN MUIR

ANNIE OAKLEY

MOLLY PITCHER

POCAHONTAS

PAUL REVERE

KNUTE ROCKNE

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

TEDDY ROOSEVELT

BETSY ROSS

BABE RUTH

SACAGAWEA

SITTING BULL

JIM THORPE

MARK TWAIN

GEORGE WASHINGTON

MARTHA WASHINGTON

WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT

Customer Reviews:

A life lesson........2002-01-24

Have you ever felt like you did not belong? Thin you should read Jackie Robinson by Herb Dun. It is a book about a boy how grew up to be one of the most famous baseball player in the world. But it did not come without hard work... that is what made he the man he is today. And that is how the world should be .
Jackie Robinson is a good book because it tells how thing happen today and could help a lot of people like when there are kids at your school by reading this book it should really help you learn a lesson that is really important to learn in real life so I think you should read this book. Because it is a book that tells a life lesson.

Joe DiMaggio: Young Sports Hero (Childhood of Famous Americans)

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The Talented and Great Joe Dimaggo
The Talented and Great Joe Dimaggio
The Talented and Great Joe Dimaggio
"It was sad when he left his family to play for the Yankees"

Joe DiMaggio: Young Sports Hero (Childhood of Famous Americans)
Herb Dunn
Manufacturer: Aladdin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0689831862

Book Description

Joe DiMaggio was a star centerfielder for fifteen years, helping the Yankees win the pennant in his rookie year. He played in ten World Series and in eleven All-Star Games. The image of American achievement and dignity, DiMaggio isn't just a sports legend, he is a true American hero.

Customer Reviews:

The Talented and Great Joe Dimaggo.......2006-02-17

This book was great! It tells the story of the immortal Joe Dimaggio,the Yankee Clipper. It begins with Joe's childhood, growing up in San Francisco, California. Joe's family was very poor so he did not have a lot of the things other kids had. he became interested in baseball because it didn't cost anything to play. Joe and the other kids in the the neighborhood would have pick up games and Joe soon found he was a very good baseball player. he decided that if he was going to be great he needed to practice more. In school all Joe could think about was baseball. Then in October,1929 the stock market crashed and Joe quit school to help support his family. It was during this time that Joe joined a neighborhhod baseball team called Rossi Olive Oil Company. Soon he was being noticed by major league scouts who were impressed with the 15 year old. By the time Joe was 18 years old he was playing with the minor league Seals and had a hitting streak of 48 games to tie the minor league record. The New York Yankees took notice of the talented young player and decided to sign him to major league contract in 1936.Joe played for the Yankees for 15 years and had the memorable and historical 56 game hitting streak that still stands today. Joe was a 3 time MVP and was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955. In 1969 Joe was voted the greatest living ball player. Joe was also honored in 1976 with the Medal of Freedom by President Ford. Joe died in 1999 at age 84 in Hollywood, Florida.

The Talented and Great Joe Dimaggio.......2006-02-14

This book was great!Joe went threw alot of hard times when he was a kid.Joe always wanted to be a great ball player when he grew up.He would always play pick up games with the neighbor hood.He was very poor,all he could afford was fish for dinner.Joe was very good at baseball.When he grew up he was one of the greatest Yankees.I found this book helpful because it has all the information you probally could get on Joe Dimaggio.Also at the end there was a timeline you could use it for a report.Also there was a stat chart of all of the stats that Joe Dimaggio had like how many home runs and hits and all stuff like that.Thats how i found it helpful and why you should read this book! By Griffin

The Talented and Great Joe Dimaggio.......2006-02-14

"It was sad when he left his family to play for the Yankees".......2001-11-03

This was just one of the facts my son spontaneously shared. This was the first book in the series that my almost 8-year old read. He was enthused about sharing what he learned about young JD and his family. He is asking for more titles from this series for his upcoming birthday.

Understanding Richard Wright's Black Boy: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents (The Greenwood Press "Literature in Context" Series)

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Understanding Richard Wright's Black Boy: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents (The Greenwood Press "Literature in Context" Series)
Robert Felgar
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Black Boy: (American Hunger) (Perennial Classics)

ASIN: 0313302219

Book Description

In Black Boy, Richard Wright triumphs over an ugly, racist world by fashioning an inspiring, powerful, beautiful, and fictionalized autobiography. To help students understand and appreciate his story in the cultural, political, racial, social, and literary contexts of its time, this casebook provides a rich source of primary historical documents, collateral readings, and commentary. The selection of unique documents is designed to place in sharp relief the issue of pervasive racism in American society. Documents include excerpts from other autobiographies and a novel, legal documents, speeches, an interview, an anthropological study, magazine and newspaper articles, and contemporary editorials. Most of the documents are available in no other printed form. From Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Du Bois on the one hand, to Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and white supremacist pronouncements on the other, Felgar creates a dialogue between the voices of oppressed blacks, including Richard Wright, and those of oppressing whites over the issue of race and racism. Students will be able to analyze a variety of perspectives on this issue from the earliest days of the American republic to the present day. Felgar also includes primary documents on the American dream of success, which has remained elusive for so many blacks. A chapter on the American autobiographical tradition uses excerpts from Ben Franklin's autobiography, as well as from those by Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Du Bois, to place Wright squarely in the tradition of this genre and show that Wright was more a believer in the myth of perpetual upward mobility than he realized. In a chapter called "The Dream Deferred," documents show how freed blacks were just as enslaved by new and restrictive laws after the Civil War as they had been under slavery. Each chapter concludes with study questions, ideas for written and oral examination, and suggested readings to aid students in examining the issues raised by Wright's autobiography.

Harriet Tubman (Childhood of Famous Americans)

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Harriet Tubman (Childhood of Famous Americans)
Kathleen Kudlinski
Manufacturer: Aladdin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0689848668

Book Description

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Customer Reviews:

Revisionist History.......1999-05-27

Am I the only one who knows that Mr. Douglass lost his mother at an early age and that contrary to this book, she was not a major influence in his life? The author didn't do his homework. This book is full of inaccuracies about Douglass' life.

Langston Hughes: Young Black Poet (Childhood of Famous Americans)

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Langston Hughes: Young Black Poet (Childhood of Famous Americans)
Montrew Dunham
Manufacturer: Aladdin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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