#25--The Captive by Joyce Hansen

Kofi is the beloved son of an Ashanti chief who has been betrayed by a beloved family slave, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in Massachusetts, post American Revolution--when slavery was illegal, but often tolerated.  Kofi does not understand what is happening.  All he wants is to get back to his family and village. He even tries to convince his captors that if they return him they will be richly rewarded.  Which, of course, they all laugh at and continue in their nefarious ways.

On the route to America, he befriends two other young boys on the ship: one, Tim, is a white indentured servant, and the other, Joseph, a black orphan who was born on the ship.  These three boys become inseparable and are eventually purchased together by a Puritan man and his wife.  While slavery is illegal in Massachusetts, white indentured servitude is not.  The man is not kind to any of the help on the farm, but especially not to the three boys.  The mistress gives all three boys lessons and Kofi especially eats it up.  Kofi eventually tries to explain to the mistress, thinking she is his friend, that he wants to go back to Africa to his family and village.  She is horrified and from then on holds him at a distance, demanding that the three boys pray for their salvation--even though there is never any explanation to the boys why they go to a long building once a week or the purpose behind the kneeling every night while the master drones one.

Kofi and his two friends eventually escape and end up on a boat belonging to Paul Cuffe, who happened to be a free black and the captain of the ship, as well as a Quaker.  The boys are taken to jail because though the master claims he has paid good money for Tim's contract, the boys claim ill-treatment and that Kofi is a kidnapped African and Joseph is an illegal slave.  In order to sort everything out, there is a trial.  Paul Cuffe has promised to take the boys under his wing and make them his apprentices in ship-building.  The boys are eventually awarded their freedom and go to live with Cuffe and his family.

In the epilogue, Kofi is an adult, married, and working tirelessly with Joseph and other Quakers to end slavery and to make life better for blacks in America.

This book is based on a journal from the late 1700s.  I was able to find out a little more information about Paul Cuffe but Kofi is a creation of the author's imagination, based on the journal.

This was a quick, easy read that I will recommend to students interested in this time period, or to teachers working on a history of slavery lesson/unit.

Happy Reading!!

#21--Whatever Happened to Janie? by Caroline B. Cooney

So, back in probably middle school or early high school I read the first book in this series The Face on the Milk Carton.....and I probably read it several times.  My students love it too and so I thought it was high time I finally continued on in the series.

In the first book, Janie Johnson picks up her best friend's milk carton at lunch for a swig after eating her sandwich.  This was back when milk cartons had pictures of missing children on them (all you children of the 80's know what I'm talking about).  Janie sees a picture of a 3-year-old girl on the carton, and she immediately thinks it is her.  But there is no reason why it would be her.  She has two doting parents who love her.  She can't be the girl, Jennie Spring, on the milk carton.  Janie obsesses over this picture, to the point that she actually writes a letter to the family--simply to let them know she is ok.  She never means to send this letter; however, it falls out of her binder and someone finds it and mails it to her.  It turns out that Janie really is Jennie and she was taken from a mall in New Jersey when she was three by a woman named Hannah Javensen, the Johnson's estranged daughter who had joined a cult many years before.  Hannah had brought Janie/Jennie to her parents, telling them that the little girl was her daughter.  Her parents had no reason to not believe her.  However, because they were afraid that the cult would track them down and try to take Janie from them, they changed their last name and moved.  The first book ends with both sets of parents meeting, at an impasse....trying to figure out what to do.

The second book picks up with Janie getting ready to leave the parents who raised her in order to get to know her biological family--two parents, three brothers, and one sister.  Nothing goes smoothly.  Jodie, Jennie's slightly older sister, had visions of nightly slumber parties with her newly found sister, her biological parents keep thinking that they can wipe away the past 13 years, and her oldest brother, Stephen is angry at the world, but mostly at Jennie for all the stress and pain her disappearance has cause both him and the family....and the younger twins, well, they are so wrapped up in each other that they don't seem to register the latest addition to the family.  Every once in a while there is a bright spot where Janie forgets that she isn't supposed to be happy with these strangers, but eventually, she demands that she be allowed to go back to her parents, the ones who raised her.

There are three more books in this series, with the last one having been published just this year.  So, I think I need to find out the rest of Janie/Jennie's story before another 20 years goes by!

Happy Reading!!

#26--Girl, Stolen by April Henry

At the end of every school year I check out a bunch of books that have sounded really good during the year that I haven't had a chance to read.  So, before I left the building on Friday, I checked out my summer reads and today I got started on them.

Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of her stepmom's car while waiting for her prescription to be filled to help get rid of her pneumonia.  Within just a few minutes of leaving the car, the door opens and slams shut and the car is started and then moving.  Pretty quickly, without looking, Cheyenne knows that it isn't her stepmother, Danielle, driving the car--and that the car is being stolen, with her in it.  Cheyenne isn't sure how she is going to survive because, not only is she sick, but she is also blind and without her trusty guide dog, Phantom.

Griffin didn't mean to kidnap Cheyenne.  He simply saw the fancy Escalade, with keys dangling from the ignition, as an easy target.  He didn't realize that there was someone in the back seat, until it was too late.  He knows that he will pay for his impulsiveness when his dad, Roy, finds out what he has done.  Roy runs a chop shop and has committed petty crimes, and taught Griffin to do the same, along with his two employees, TJ and Jimbo.  While watching the evening news, Roy discovers that Cheyenne's father is the president of Nike, and he hatches a plan to ask for a hefty ransom for Cheyenne's return. 

Told with alternating narration between Cheyenne and Griffin, this is a quick, easy read, that had me on pins and needles, wondering what was going to happen to Cheyenne and Griffin, with a great twist at the end!  I will be definitely be adding this one to my list of possible book talks for next year!

Happy Reading!!