Description:

It's 1851 and Lucy Spencer's family is keeping a secret. Their Ohio home is a station on the Underground Railroad, the network of people and places that helps fugitive slaves escape to freedom in Canada. Lucy believes in what she and her family do to help the fugitives, even if it means putting herself in danger. So Lucy doesn't hesitate when she is asked to stay with the Widow Aurelia Mercer and help her with a family of runaway slaves hiding in her attic. And she learns so much from her experience--about growing up, love, and standing on her own. But what will Lucy do when she is asked to make the ultimate sacrifice and leave all she loves behind? ** ### From Publishers Weekly Told through journal entries and letters, this historical novel underscores the cruel consequences of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act and the dangerous choices forced on Americans both black and white in the tense years leading to the Civil War. At 16, Lucinda Spenser has already helped slaves escape, as her family's Ohio farm forms part of the Underground Railroad route to Canada. On the eve of a party at the home of Lucinda's beau, Jonathan Clark, the Quaker Jeremiah Strong asks Lucinda to play a key role in a daring plot to protect 10 escapees, mostly children but also one pregnant woman. The plan involves a prolonged stay at the home of the unconventional Widow (Aurelia) Mercer, who shares her feminist notions with Lucinda. While Lucinda spends some time debating which of her two suitors, Jonathan or Jeremiah, she prefers, the friendships she forges with Miss Aurelia and the fugitive slaves transform the plot from predictable romance to a tale of bravery and sacrifice: Lucinda's passions shift from flirtation to an even deeper commitment to free slaves. Ayres's (Family Tree) plotting is not always plausible (for example, the ruse by which Lucinda goes to stay at Miss Aurelia's?a faked case of measles?works improbably long at keeping outsiders at bay). While there is more action here than in the similarly themed Bright Freedom's Song (reviewed below), it also seems more of a '90s novel, in which the heroine's dramatic self-actualization is at least as important as the period setting. Ages 10-up. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. ### From School Library Journal Grade 5-9-In January, 1851, Lucinda Spencer, age 16, writes her second entry of the new year from the free state of Ohio. In answer to God's call and as a matter of personal conscience, her father has made the family farm a station on the Underground Railroad. Lucinda has grown up with this charge but also believes it to be her own. She leaves her home to help a neighbor protect nine fugitives (mostly children) on the woman's farm and, in the end, shepherds a newborn to freedom in Canada after the mother dies, thus never seeing her own family again. Through Lucinda's diary, spanning approximately three months, Ayres explains and condemns the Fugitive Slave Act, argues politics, touches on Southern laws preventing the teaching of reading to slaves, and builds a plot that culminates in freedom for the runaways and the coming of age of a young woman. There are steady references to budding romance (Lucinda has two wooers) and to God's plan and God's peoples. The author's obvious research is demonstrated and so, at times, is her descriptive voice. She handles most of the story gracefully; but there is a lot going on-bits of antislavery tracts, Quaker philosophy, rights of women/peoples. It will take a careful and skillful reader to get it all. There has been a growing body of literature that addresses slavery for this audience. Margaret Goff Clark's Freedom Crossing (Scholastic, 1991) is still one of the best for its suspense, ideals, and characterizations. Also recommend Gary Paulsen's Nightjohn (Delacorte, 1993) and, of course, Paula Fox's classic The Slave Dancer (Bradbury, 1973). *Harriett Fargnoli, Great Neck Library, NY* Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.