
This fictionalized account of her extraordinary life is ideal for students, teachers, and parents hungry for interesting and informative reading in African-American history and the Underground Railroad.

Until she was a teenager, Ann Maria Weems lived in the mid-1800s near the author's home in Maryland. A white man risks his life for Ann, cuts her hair short, dresses her like a boy, and launches her on her journey on the Underground Railroad to Canada, her family, and finally to freedom. Separated from her family by her master and shipped off as a housemaid, Ann learns something about independence and about love before the opportunity for escape arrives.

To Ann, her teasing brothers, her older sister, and her protective and loving parents are everything. Twelve-year-old Ann Maria Weems works from sunup to sundown, wraps rags around her feet in the winter, and must do whatever her master or mistress orders-but she has something that many plantation slaves don't have. Yearling Books, 6.5 (258pp) ISBN 978-7-1 In a starred review,PW called this novel, based on the life of a slave who disguised herself as a boy and.
