Freedom Ship written by Doreen Rappaport illustrated by Curtis James

This is a historical fiction book that depicts actual events infused with the author’s own creativity.  The book tells the story of enslaved families that make a desperate attempt to free themselves by stealing a Confederate ship.  As the reader opens the front cover of Freedom Ship the story already begins with a map of the Charleston Harbor and its fortifications and a picture of the ship where the enslaved family works.  The patel illustrations throughout the book boasts simple backgrounds and great details in the characters and foregrounds.  At the end of the book the author discusses how she constructed the book out of many newspaper articles that depicted the event.  This book illustrates the emotion of many slaves and how desperate and brave they had to be to try to escape. 

As a reader, this book is both emotional and inspiring and left me wanting to discover other creative escapes along the Underground Railroad.  This book lends itself to many discussions and extension activities.  Creating a story of current events from a compilation of newspaper articles, researching other creative escapes, and using Freedom Ship as a basis for Reader's Theater are activities that would increase the knowledge of the Underground Railroad as well as infuse current events into the curriculum.