Two Tickets to Freedom: The True Story of William and Ellen Craft, Fugitive Slaves by Florence B. Freedman, illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats.
My edition Scholastic, New York, 1995. Orig. pub. Simon & Schuster, 1971.
Nonfiction, 96 pages.
Lexile: 1030L .
AR Level: 6.8 (worth 3.0 points) .
This book tells the life story of husband and wife William and Ellen Craft, best known for their famous escape from slavery.
In case you are not familiar with this couple, William was a skilled tradesman whose entire family was separated by slavery. Ellen was given to her sister as a wedding present from her father’s wife. They had better lives than many slaves – Ellen was a house servant with comparatively light duties, William was allowed to do extra work and earn his own money, and their owners permitted them to live together in a common-law marriage (it was not legal for slaves to complete a religious or civil marriage ceremony).
However, both deplored the condition of slavery, and they decided not to have children as slaves. One day, William came up with an idea. Ellen was light-skinned and could easily pass for white. They had money from William’s extra work. Ellen would disguise herself as a young man (since a white woman would never travel alone with a male slave) and William as her slave.
It’s a fascinating story, and I’m often surprised that it isn’t better known. We read a book about it (that also includes a reader’s theater) back during the 30 day project., so I was excited to learn more. The kids kept asking what happened next, and the picture book only gave a page of text to tell what happened in the next part of their life.
Colorful Book Reviews 