Second Daughter: The Story of a Slave Girl [Library Binding]

Mildred Pitts Walter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1996

Based on the true story of Mum Bett, or Elizabeth Freeman, a historical tale is told from the perspective of her sister, Aissa, and follows the young slave's victorious lawsuit for freedom from her owner.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Walter (Mississippi Challenge) treats fiction as the handmaiden of history and politics in this fact-based story, drawing from research about Mum Bett, a Massachusetts slave who successfully sued for her freedom shortly after the Revolutionary War. For a narrator Walter chooses Mum Bett's sister, whose name and life story have gone unrecorded. The author gives her the African name Aissa, which means "Second Daughter"; a self-satisfied, capricious mistress; a strong temperament; and an indomitable will to be free. Aissa charts the injustices as she watches her more accommodating older sister, Bett, serve men who spout Revolutionary rhetoric about liberty with no thought to the humans they treat as property. Bett's husband, a free man, is killed fighting in the Revolution, but the pension Bett receives is nowhere near enough to buy their child's freedom. In common with many other heroines reclaimed from oblivion, Bett is also a skilled folk healer. It's a story of perfect political rectitude, but the agenda here is stronger than the narrative?judging from the intriguing historical note at the end of the book, its lessons might have been even more clearly delivered as nonfiction. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 6^-10. The history is dramatic: in 1781 a slave woman, Mum Bett, took her owner to court and won her freedom under the Massachusetts Constitution. Her story is told in the voice of her fictional younger sister, Aissa, who describes the events leading up to that historic trial--what it was like to be a slave, to be sold away from home, to work for someone who saw you only as property, to hide your true self. The plot meanders, and the characterization is thin: through Aissa's eyes, people are pretty much saints or villains, though the author does show that Bett holds on to a strong sense of her inner worth. What readers will respond to are the facts of Bett's life and the bitter truth of the young slave's commentary. For the powerful leaders who are fighting the Revolutionary War and hammering out the Constitution, the sisters are invisible. As the action builds to the climax of the trial, Aissa raises the elemental question: if the great new Constitution says that all men are created equal, does "men" include black men and all women? Hazel Rochman

Product Details

• Library Binding: 214 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Trade (February 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0590482823
• ISBN-13: 978-0590482820
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,594,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, April 4, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Second Daughter: The Story of a Slave Girl (Library Binding)

I would say that this book tells of the cruel actions committed onto slaves. It gives not very descriptive details of what is happening in the book in certain places, but manages to still sum up what's going on. I would recommend this book for people who like reading historically told books and for peopl ewho might need to get an image of what slavery was and how it affected peoples lives.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Harsh historical realities told in vivid detail., August 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Second Daughter: The Story of a Slave Girl (Library Binding)

I live just a few short miles from the historical homsestead where Mum Bett served as a slave, and yet I did not know her story until I met Mildred Pitts Walter at a convention. This story does not simply tell of the cruelities of slavery, but more than any other children's book on this subject, it describes the harsh realities of the times for all peoples, the illnesses that took life early, the difficulties encountered in child bearing, and the shortages brought about by the revolutionary war. Although the reviews above criticize the story for its meadering plot, I appreciated the window it gave me on daily life at the time of the American revolution. Ultimately, it is a book about the courage of one woman who fought for what was rightly hers. My adult friends keep borrowing it ...this is not a book for children only.