Elijah of Buxton

If you liked Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, you'd definitely like this. The story takes place in Buxton, Canada (a settlement for runaway slaves) during the mid-1800's. The main character, Elijah, is an 11 year old boy that is very naive and believes just about everything he is told. He is described as a "fra-gile" boy by his mother. If you like to read about hoop snakes, toady-frogs and chunking rocks, you love this.

It is also an informative book as it describes real people, places and things that actually existed. The plot demonstrated the importance of slavery, freedom, teamwork and sense of community.

The tone changes, however, in the second half of the book. Elijah becomes involved with a "Not-so-honest" preacher and is forced to choose between being a "man or a child". It becomes quite suspenseful right up until the very end.

The only criticism I have is that sometimes the characters are hard to understand because of the "dialect" aka "slang"used. I often had to re-read sentences and/or paragraphs to follow the story.