Steal Away Home (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

Ruby, Lois

ISBN 10: 0613121546 ISBN 13: 9780613121545

Publisher: Turtleback Books, 1999

Synopsis

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. In two parallel stories, a Quaker family in Kansas in the late 1850s operates a station on the Underground Railroad, while almost 150 years later twelve-year-old Dana moves into the same house and finds the skeleton of a black woman who helped the Quakers.

About this title

About the Author:

Lois Ruby is the author of several novels, including Steal Away Home, which was named an IRA Young Adults' Choice and a Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies (NCSS/CBC). Before she turned to writing, she was a young adult librarian for the Dallas Public Library. In her spare time she serves on the board of Inter-Faith Inn, a homeless shelter in Wichita, Kansas, and sometimes teaches minicourses to seventh and eighth graders. “The place I feel most comfortable,” she says, “is among teenagers, laughing.” The mother of three sons, she lives in Wichita with her husband, Thomas.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 6-8?Dana, 12, is helping her parents to restore an old house in Kansas as a bed-and-breakfast when she discovers a boarded-up room containing a human skeleton. With it, she finds the diary of Millicent Weaver, a Quaker and early resident of the house. She learns that the house was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and that runaway slaves were taken there by a former slave, Lizbet Charles. Of course, Miz Lizbet is Dana's skeleton, and the cause of her death at the age of 25 is finally revealed at the end of the novel. The story is told in alternating chapters, shifting between the present and 1856, when the events involving the long-dead young woman took place. The best developed character is young James Weaver, who struggles with his family's philosophy of nonviolence and with the secrets he must keep. The historical sections flow together well, revealing aspects of Miz Lizbet's life, which in some ways resembles Harriet Tubman's. The Weavers use traditional Quaker speech, liberally sprinkled with thee and thou. The modern-day scenes are somewhat less successful, and some of the conversations among the young people are a bit contrived. Still, the book will make a nice addition to historical fiction collections about pre-Civil War events.?Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Turtleback Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0613121546
• ISBN 13: 9780613121545
• Binding: School & Library Binding
• Number of pages: 208