Rarely does historical fiction achieve the immediacy and power of this exceptional novel. The eponymous narrator recounts how, 80 years earlier, a slave on a Virginia plantation and only 11 or 12 years old (often slaves didn't know their exact age), he escaped with a far-seeing, clandestinely educated slave woman and traveled the Underground Railroad to freedom. The account of the journey, much of it on foot, is enthralling, but marks only the start of Cezanne's travels. Stolz shifts the narrative, briskly paced but keenly atmospheric, to the farm of a wealthy Canadian, to Civil War Washington, D.C., to the Texas range, to Chicago. Liberal references to Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman not only serve a purpose in the plot but revitalize the reader's understanding of such figures' heroism and accomplishments, while equally adroit mentions of Mathew Brady and Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable reclaim these famous individuals' places in the African American heritage. Stolz dazzles with the scope of her vision, challenging her audience to reconsider American history through the eyes of those who, until recently, had little hand in writing it. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
Grade 5-9-Stolz invites her readers to suspend disbelief and to read this tale as an actual memoir. She largely succeeds. The day that Cezanne Pinto walked away from slavery in Virginia, he decided he was 12 years old. Now in his old age, he recounts his experiences. His story is a moving panorama of life as a black boy and man in the years before, during, and after the Civil War. Cezanne escapes, makes his way by foot and by Underground Railroad to Canada via Philadelphia, returns to Pennsylvania and hitches on with a Northern cavalry unit at the end of the Civil War, travels to Texas and works as a cowboy, and finally goes to Chicago to learn and to teach. The numerous turns of fortune suggest that he is larger than life, but his shortcomings as well as his strengths are revealed. Stolz laces bits of history into the narrative, introducing facts where they fit. The text is conversational, with much of it in dialect. As Cezanne becomes committed to learning and speaking more formal English, his effort is reflected by subtly evolving language. He is revealed as a complex and rich character, filled with sorrow and fortitude. A compelling book that would make an outstanding companion to Virginia Hamilton's Anthony Burns (Knopf, 1988).
Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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