Review of the Day: The Escape of Oney Judge

The Escape of Oney Judge: Martha Washington's Slave Finds Freedom, written and illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $11.20.

When you consider the pedestal on which our Founding Fathers are placed in the world of children's literature, it's not surprising that the story of George Washington's slaves has never been adequately told for the younger set. A slave owning first president just doesn't gel with the general George-Washington-chopped-down-a-cherry-tree mythos. You want something on his wooden chompers? Read Deborah Chandra's amusing, George Washington's Teeth. You prefer a silly story involving a bunch of wacky barnyard animals? George Washington's Cows, by David Small is the book for you. But you won't find runaway slaves mentioned in "Teeth" and you'd be hard pressed to find a single black amongst any of the white servents in "Cows". Now Farrar, Straus & Giroux (who, fascinatingly enough, was the publisher of all three of these books) has published Caldecott Award winning author/illustrator Emily Arnold McCully's newest biography, "The Escape of Oney Judge: Martha Washington's Slave Finds Freedom". From the moment I read this subtitle I was hooked. Few people would have the guts to talk about this tie-in between the Washingtons and the girl who got away from them. Trust McCully to carry about with her a backbone made of iron and enough facts to blow away even the most skeptical of critics.

She was the daughter of a white indentured servant and a black slave mother in 1773, and right from the start Oney Judge was quick. Because of both this and her light skin she was taken on as one of Mrs. Washington's sewing circle slaves, and her skills with a needle made her invaluable to her mistress. When George Washington was to become President of the United States of America, Oney moved with the family to Philadelphia. It was there that she learned that an adult slave who lived there six months was required, by law, to be free. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that Martha Washington intended to will Oney to her granddaughter Eliza in the event of her own death. Oney, desperate to escape before the family returned to Mount Vernon, threw herself on the mercy of some freed slaves and Quakers who, in turn, helped her escape to New Hampshire. Author Emily McCully tells everything from Oney's early years to the multiple attempts the Washingtons and their friends made to lure, threaten, and trick Oney into returning back to Mount Vernon. In the end, Oney remained free and the extensive Author's Note at the back recounts how she continued to live in "proud, independent poverty for the rest of her life."

Much of this book owes its existence to Henry Wiencek's, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. It is more important than ever to teach our kids that while the Founding Fathers did many good things and created a remarkable new nation, in their personal lives they were sometimes less than stellar human beings. Martha Washington in particular comes off looking quite the self-satisfied slave owner in this title. She'd had slaves for many years, and she apparently had no intention of freeing any of them, even in the event of her own death. So McCully knows how to just give kids the facts without going out of her way to conjure up stereotypes. Martha Washington isn't pictured with evil leers and a nasty eye. She's a product of her times to some extent and yet she's also completely blind to the needs of the people around her. McCully did find it necessary to note at the end that, for George, he didn't say anything publicly against slavery but that he "made provisions in his will for the freeing of his own slaves after Martha's death." Kids can make of that what they would like.

The storytelling in this book proceeds at a swift clip. McCully's an old hand at non-fiction works, having put her skills to the test with such titles as The Pirate Queen and The Ballot Box Battle. Considering the scant amount of information there must have been out there on Oney, you have to admire the sheer number of Sources and Websites cited by the author at the end of her book. And her storytelling is consistently interesting, even if she has to rely on creating dialogue for the sake of keeping the story interesting. I was especially taken with the moments in the story where Oney, thinking herself safe, is barraged with people trying to get her to return to the Washingtons. The mere fact that Washington didn't take Oney to court is explained beautifully. "The President would have to go to court to force a slave to return. He won't do that - it would only cause a scandal in the North." And his now sterling reputation might have tarnished some as a result, I'm sure. McCully does choose to end the story in a manner so abrupt that I almost wonder if she ran out of time and didn't have a chance to create a final image of Oney living on her own alongside the sentence, "For the rest of her long life, Oney Judge had no mistress but herself." Instead we get a very hurried encapsulation of her final flight with the picture of a man helping her into a cart at night. The book is excellent on telling a story but certainly lacking in any kind of conclusion.

Those of you familiar with McCully's watercolor style will take to her images in this book. I can offer no criticism here, and not being familiar with the clothing of this time period I can't comment on how historically accurate McCully has been. Nonetheless, the book does a good job of breaking up the text around the images in the story. Nothing ever feels stilted or slapdash, since pictures are constantly jumping above, below, and around a given section of writing.

So is it historical fiction based on a true story or is it non-fiction? The Library of Congress subject headings all consider this book to be fiction, and in a way you can concede the point. After all, to make the book interesting McCully has to rely on putting words into her characters mouths that may seem plausible, but that can't be backed up with any adequate source material. That won't stop some libraries from squeezing, "Oney Judge" onto their biography shelves, but be careful to bear in mind the author's limitations.

Recently the U.S. Mint revealed that the newest dollar coin was going to feature the image of George Washington on it. I figure that if your kids are going to go about seeing this man's face everywhere, the least you can do is give them a story about one of the women he and his wife owned. Exciting and factual, "The Escape of Oney Judge" is one of those must-read titles for any child asked to do a biography of George Washington for a school project. By all means mention his triumphs in battle and acts as a President. Just remember too that one woman did all she could to escape from under his thumb.

Other Titles: If historical fiction's your bag, check out the middle reader title Taking Liberty: The Story of Oney Judge, George Washington's Runaway Slave by Ann Rinaldi (though you'll note the inaccuracy of the title).

Previous Online Reviews of This Title: Planet Esme. You can also see a Q&A with Emily McCully regarding this book at the Powell's website.

Review of the Day: The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County by Janice N. Harrington

The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County by Janice N. Harrington, illustrated by Shelley Jackson. A Melanie Kroupa Book (an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Girioux). $16.00.

Dear authors,

I have some bad news. Your jobs, as you know it, are in peril. I will explain. Now we all know that librarians are inherently cool. You can’t be a purveyor of information and NOT be cool. It’s part of the occupation. And that was fine and all until SOME of them started writing children’s books. It started off slowly enough. You’d read a fun book and have the vague sense of, “Oh, how neat. This person also knows their Dewey Decimal System,” and that would be the end of it. Recently, however, it’s exploded onto the marketplace. One minute a librarian is winning the Newbery and the next you’ve something like “The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County,” by Janice N. Harrington sitting in front of you. And author Janice N. Harrington isn’t just a librarian. She’s a professional storyteller too. Ooo. Double threat. Until now her picture books have been gaining a little attention here and there. Some of you may even remember her 2004 title, Going North, which won her the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award and proceeded to nab good review after good review. Well she’s back, baby, and whatta follow-up it is too. Owing much of its tastiness to illustrator Shelley Jackson alongside words that flow like honey-dipped silk, Harrington is going to give children’s authors everywhere a run for their money. I suggest you all consider getting your MLIS degrees pronto.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County. Now bear in mind that this gal isn’t exactly popular when it comes to that particular title. Big Mama doesn’t like her chickens getting all hepped-up since it mucks with their egg production. Our heroine doesn’t care one bit about that, though. She’s the best chicken-chaser on the planet, though there’s one particular fowl she’s been eyeing for some time. The bird’s name is Miss Hen and she’s a beaut. “Her feathers are shiny as a rained-on roof. She has high yellow stockings and long-fingered feet, and when she talks – ‘Pruck! Pruck! Pruck! – it sounds like pennies falling on a dinner plate.” Our hero is determined to catch this bird if it’s the last thing she does, but when she finally discovers Miss Hen’s hiding spot and secret, the greatest chicken-chaser of Lamar County has a change of heart and a whole new goal in life.

I’ve an especial fondness for children’s books where the author has taken the time to get a little onomatopoetic on the reader. For example, the chickens in this book don’t say “cluck” or “cock-a-doodle-doo”. No, they say “Pruck! Pruck! Pruck,” and, as chicks, “Pee-o, pee-o, pee-o.” Fortunately for everyone, Ms. Harrington’s prose is choice. This book begs you to read it aloud. Readalouds, I would like to point out, are tricky devils. Most picture books don’t come up to snuff. Either the words are good and the pictures difficult to see at a distance or the pictures are remarkable and the words dull as dishwater. Neither is the case here. In this book every line rolls off the tongue bee-utifully, belying Ms. Harrington’s storytelling roots. Plus, the plum good spirits of the book also make it that much more enjoyable to read.

So far illustrator Shelley Jackson’s been flying low on the radar in the children’s literary world. In the adult fiction world, however, she’s… well… basically she kicks ass and takes names. Remember that project where an entire novel was tattooed, one word apiece, on the skin of volunteers? Not only is that still going on (1,850 participants as of this writing) it was her idea. You may even have read her novels, Half Life, or, Patchwork Girl. For all of that, her children’s books haven’t gotten their fair share of recognition; a fact that could well change with this latest book. In pairing her with Harrington we get a title that charms you from the cover onwards. Using a mix of paint and mixed-media, Jackson fashions chickens out of everything from graph paper and carpet snatches to money, lined paper, fabric, and god knows what-all. Photographs of worms, cornbread and warm “goldy-brown” eggs swirl about our heroine’s head. Words encompass every font, coming together like particularly well-honed ransom notes. All that aside, her painting in and of itself is excellent. From the girl’s look of pure-eyed wonder when she sees Ms. Hen with a healthy brood to her manic lunges at unsuspecting poultry, this kid feels real. I have also never seen chickens look quite so smug. Remarkable.

Basically, if I’m going to chose my favorite chicken book of 2007, the Misses Harrington and Jackson get my vote. Last year the prize went to John Himmelman’s, Chickens to the Rescue, which would actually pair beautifully with this sly little book considering how well they both read aloud. You could create your own chicken-centric storytime with the lot of them. All that aside, consider this a must-purchase and a spectacular book. It has my vote as one of the cleverest titles of the year (and, as an afterthought, kids are going to enjoy it quite a lot as well).

On shelves March 20th.

Website Notes: If you’ve half a mind to do so, check out Shelley Jackson's website. I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that she does children’s books in alongside her other work. NOT that she touts them on her homepage (consarn it).

Review of the Day: How to Steal a Dog

How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Connor. Frances Foster Books (an FSG imprint). $16.00

Lure ‘em in with a cute dog and then hit ‘em hard and fast with a realistic story about how it feels to be homeless. It’s the old bait n’ switcheroo. Not that Barbara O’Connor’s book, “How to Steal a Dog” plays anything but fair with her young audiences. After all, the first line in this book is the incredibly memorable, “The day I decided to steal a dog was the same day my best friend, Luanne Godfrey, found out I lived in a car.” Bam! Right in the kisser. There’s not a child alive, boy or girl, who isn’t going to want to know more after those twenty-four words hit the page. O’Connor has created a nice little novel here with an ending that could have stood a little more padding. But while I feel that there were a couple off moments here and there, on the whole this is a new take on the question of whether or not a person can justify a wrong if they see no other way out of a predicament.

First of all, Georgina is not a bad person. If you saw her in school you might think she was a kind of unkempt and dirty person, but that’s just because she, her little brother Toby, and their mom have been living in their car ever since their dad up and left them. It hasn’t been easy for Georgina, of course. Her best friend Luanne has been distancing herself lately. The family’s never safe and Georgina’s having a really hard time getting her schoolwork done. If only there were some way she could get a lot of money for the rent of a new apartment. Then Georgina sees a MISSING poster for a dog offering $500 and it all comes together. Of course! The perfect solution! All she needs to do is find a rich dog, steal it, wait for the reward posters to go up, and then collect the money for her family. But every perfect plan, no matter how well executed, is bound to run into some unexpected mishaps along the way. Georgina is not a bad person, but she is a confused person. One that’s going to have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy.

The ironic thing here is that, in a way, Georgina is exceedingly talented at what she does. O’Connor has her heroine writing dog stealing rules in her notebook that supplement the narrative beautifully. Her rules regarding finding a dog (avoid barkers and dogs that don’t look loved) and ways in which a person should scout out a potential dog-stealing location are on the ball. And when those same rules come back to bite her in the butt later on in the story, you can see why. Planning is one thing. Executing, another entirely. Georgina is so good at her planning, in fact, that my credulity was stretched just a tad when she fails to remember to get the dog food and water. Still, with a myriad of things on her mind it’s not impossible that when planning out her details she’d miss some of the more obvious needs.

The book essentially asks the readers whether or not extraordinarily bad circumstances are an excuse for bad behavior. It’s a morality tale for fifth graders. Throughout “How to Steal a Dog” you definitely identify with Georgina. Little brothers are always annoying, but no more so than when they’re sharing a backseat with you, rather than a bedroom. Now for the sake of the story, Georgina holds off on returning Willy longer than either her character or the book itself can really justify. I mean, once it becomes clear that the money is not forthcoming, there’s no reason to put her through any additional mental anguish. Eventually Georgina and Toby meet and semi-befriend a homeless man that stands in as a kind of Thoreau-esque conscience. In him, Georgina is able to examine her own actions and assess the damage she’s done. Really though, the character that I thought received the most interesting story arc was the woman Georgina stole the dog from in the first place. Known here as Carmella, she’s overweight and not particularly attractive, but her love of her dog Willy is instantly recognizable. I liked O’Connor’s decision not to have Georgina seriously befriend this woman after her dog mysteriously “disappears”. She doesn’t grow overly attached, though she does come to worry about how her actions have affected another human being.

Still, there were other things I didn’t understand. Georgina constantly looks worse in school due to her circumstances. She apparently wasn’t able to salvage her hairbrush when the family got booted out of their apartment. As the book goes on she gets nastier and nastier. How hard is it to locate another hairbrush? And wouldn't her mother want her kids to look halfway decent so that the authorities in the school didn’t get suspicious and start calling the authorities? Then again Georgina’s mom seems to be under a great deal of stress. She might not even be able to see past herself to notice her kids’ increasing sloppiness. I did feel that the ending skidded to a halt without tying up a lot of loose ends though. It’s a quick finish and then you wonder exactly whether or not the peaches and cream ending is really going to be as happy dappy as Georgina implies.

It’s a bit of a tangled book, but that isn’t to say that it doesn’t make for a good read. Personally, I feel a revision here or there wouldn’t have been out of place, but as it stands I hope kids discover and read it. Books about homeless kids have basically ground to a halt since the heyday of the Reagan era. Looking at the selection of children’s fiction sitting on our bookstore shelves you’d swear that homelessness had been entirely eradicated in this day and age. This book puts a problem into perspective with a clever premise and a rewarding story. It isn’t a perfect creation, but it may well be a necessary one. I appreciated the effort.

Notes On the Cover: Bravo. Bravo Farrar, Straus & Giroux. You’ve managed to create the most adorable cover featuring a canine since last year’s Sheep by Valerie Hobbs. This is almost too perfect in execution. Nitpickers might point out that this scene never happens in the book, but I say pah. Pah, I say! First of all, this dog looks exactly like the one in the book, down to the black circle around one eye. He’s the right size and his little body is just adorable. I love the use of yellow as a background as well. It really allows the book to pop. Then there are the aesthetics to consider. The black and white of the dog match the black and the white of the spine. This book is one of those rare covers that will lure in an equal amount of boys AND girls. It’s a magic combination, and I just want to credit jacket designer Barbara Grzeslo for a bang-up job. Getty Images strikes again. THIS is a cover.

First Lines Worth Remembering: “The day I decided to steal a dog was the same day my best friend, Luanne Godfrey, found out I lived in a car.”