Parents' Guide to
Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad
Common Sense Media Review
By Patricia Tauzer
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Heartrending, hopeful true story of enslaved boy's escape.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 5+?
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Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 4 parent reviews
What's the Story?
In HENRY'S FREEDOM BOX, Henry is a young boy when his enslaver dies and he's separated from his mother, sent to work in a tobacco factory owned by his enslaver's son. He later marries, and he and his wife have three children. After his wife and kids are sold away from him, he comes up with an inventive plan for escaping to freedom: to mail himself in a wooden crate to anti-slavery activists in Philadelphia.
Is It Any Good?
This moving story of one individual's strength of spirit is inspirational in its simplicity. Henry's Freedom Box poignantly presents the heartrending sorrow of families torn apart during U.S. slavery, and the powerlessness of the enslaved people. This book does not preach. In fact, its message is almost understated. But, in the eyes of the boy, in the gentleness of his mother, in the cramped, crated body of the escaping man, its meaning comes across loud and clear: Slavery is evil.
Illustrator Kadir Nelson's artwork brings warmth and reality to a story that otherwise is told rather straightforwardly. With crosshatched pencil lines under layers of watercolor and oils, he has created amazingly sensitive and powerful portraits based on an anti-slavery lithograph of Henry "Box" Brown that was printed in 1850. Kadir's illustrations alone make this a book worth having.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how slavery in the United States is portrayed in Henry's Freedom Box. What was Henry's life like as he grew up on the plantation, and after?
What do you think about Henry's plan to escape? Could you have taken such a chance? What were the risks?
Had you heard of the Underground Railroad before reading this book?
Book Details
- Author: Ellen Levine
- Illustrator: Kadir Nelson
- Genre: Picture Book
- Topics: Great Boy Role Models , History , Trains
- Character Strengths: Courage , Integrity , Perseverance
- Book type: Non-Fiction
- Publisher: Scholastic Press
- Publication date: January 1, 2008
- Number of pages: 40
- Available on: Paperback, Nook, Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Award: Caldecott Medal and Honors
- Last updated: May 31, 2022
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