The Journey of Little Charlie (National Book Award Finalist)

Starred review from October 30, 2017
Echoing themes found in Curtis’s Newbery Honor–winning Elijah of Buxton, this exceedingly tense novel set in 1858 provides a very different perspective on the business of catching runaway slaves. Eking out a living as South Carolina sharecroppers, the Bobo family knows hard luck. After 12-year-old Charlie’s father is killed in a freak accident, Charlie reluctantly agrees to pay off his father’s debt by accompanying a plantation overseer, the despicable Captain Buck, on a hunt for three runaways. Charlie’s journey takes him north to Detroit and Canada where black people and white people work and live peaceably together. Sickened by the dirty business of rounding up former enslaved men and women, Charlie hatches a risky scheme to steer them to safety. Curtis portrays Charlie as a product of his white Southern upbringing and values, skillfully conveying how his widening view of the world leads to a change in his thinking. Written in persuasive dialect and piloted by a hero who finds the courage to do what he knows is right, Curtis’s unsparing novel pulls no punches as it illuminates an ugly chapter of American history. Ages 9–12.

Starred review from January 1, 2018

Gr 5-8-Oversized like an ox, 12-year-old Charlie Bobo and his sharecropper parents eke out a living on the Tanner Plantation deep in South Carolina in 1858. When an accident takes his father's life, Charlie and his mother must settle a debt with the plantation's sadistic overseer, Cap'n Buck. The despicable overseer forces Charlie to accompany him to Detroit to retrieve $4,000 worth of stolen property. Charlie's journey covers more than miles as he finally realizes the stolen property isn't material but human. Outside his norm of Southern life, he sees his white privilege and the horrors of people claiming ownership of other people. It truly sickens him, but he feels trapped by his father's debt. Cap'n Buck and Charlie venture into Canada to capture their last fugitive slave: Sylvanus, a boy just Charlie's age. When he sees the similarities in their lives despite their different races, Charlie knows he cannot be party to the legal evil of slavery any longer ("I knowed Sylvanus and his ma and pa was gonna be slaves 'gain. And I knowed it would be my doings that caused it."). Charlie alters the course of his journey right then, changing his life forever. His choice shows that no matter one's upbringing-Charlie lived in poverty, racism, and ignorance-a person can choose right. Curtis's use of dialect lends the story authenticity, though it may slow down less confident readers. The violence of slavery is not shied away from and use of historically accurate, derogatory terms for black people are used. Young readers will benefit from discussion during and after reading. VERDICT A thought-provoking book from a master storyteller.-Lisa Crandall, formerly at the Capital Area District Library, Holt, MI

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2017
A white sharecroppers' son finds himself on a mission to recapture a family that has escaped slavery.A few weeks after the death of Little Charlie Bobo's father, Cap'n Buck, the overseer of the plantation on which they farm, tells the 12-year-old and his ma that the elder Charlie Bobo had taken a down payment on a job to recover lost property. In this way, Charlie becomes a partner with a man known for his cruelty on a mission to track enslaved people. When Cap'n Buck finds the family he is looking for, he discovers the son of the family, Sylvanus Demarest, is attending school in Canada, and their mission becomes an international kidnapping. Newbery winner Curtis once again successfully draws on the stories about enslaved people who found freedom in Canada; the pursuit of Sylvanus Demarest is based on an actual incident. By seeing the story through the eyes of a poor white boy and a white overseer, readers confront how so many were connected by slavery. Curtis demonstrates in dramatic fashion how much the formerly enslaved valued their freedom and what they were willing to do to help one of their own remain free. The narrative is briskly paced, and both Little Charlie and Sylvanus are compelling characters. The Southern whites speak in dialect, and they refer to black people with the offensive term "darkie," both authentic to the 1858 setting. A characteristically lively and complex addition to the historical fiction of the era from Curtis. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)

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