Freedom's Price

by Michaela Maccoll, Rosemary Nichols

Overview

Kansas State Reading Circle Recommended Books
Paterson Prize for Books for Young People
Grateful American Prize – Honorable Mention
Missouri State Teachers Association Recommended Books

Dred Scott’s daughter learns what it means to pay the price for freedom in this compelling middle-grade historical fiction novel.

Eleven year old Eliza Scott has a lot to live for. Eliza and her family will soon be free. She is learning to read and write at a secret school. And she has a new friend she can share her dreams with. But when Eliza is confronted by vicious slave catchers, the spread of cholera, and a devastating fire, she is forced to come to terms with what it really takes to be on her own. Will she ever be able to fulfill her childhood dreams?

Michaela MacColl and Rosemary Nichols delve deep into the history of the Dred Scott decision and pre–Civil War America to tell Eliza Scott’s riveting coming-of-age story. Freedom’s Price is the second in the Hidden Histories series about children and little-known events in American history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629794327
Publisher:	Astra Publishing House
Publication date:	10/06/2015
Series:	Hidden Histories
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Lexile:	630L (what's this?)
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Michaela MacColl is the award-winning writer of several historical fiction novels. She is the co-author of Rory's Promise, the first in the Hidden Histories series published by Calkins Creek. She and her family live in Westport, Connecticut. Visit michaelamaccoll.com.

Rosemary Nichols's first novel was Rory's Promise with Michaela MacColl. She lives in Watervliet, New York. Visit rosemarygailnichols.com.

Editorial Reviews

"History comes alive in this imagining of the life of Eliza Scott, one of the daughters of Dred Scott, the slave at the center of a landmark case in American history.... Not much is known about the real-life Eliza, but these authors' depict her as brave, headstrong, and intelligent.... this book is a compelling and exciting narrative as well as a window into a possible history.... A great choice to support school curriculum." — School Library Journal

"MacColl and Nichols paint a vivid picture of slavery's brutal yoke... (e)xpect a savvy, energetic fighter in Eliza, and suspenseful plotting in this fine piece of historical fiction from the Hidden Histories series." – Booklist

From the Publisher

2015-07-15
This entry in MacCall and Nichols' Hidden Histories series takes a fictional look at the Dred Scott decision. Eliza Scott lives like she's free, but her liberty is tenuous, at best. She is the 11-year-old daughter of Dred Scott, the litigant in the eponymous 1857 U.S. Supreme Court case regarding African-Americans' liberties. She and her family live in a nether life between independence and slavery, and she, like quite a few hardheaded preteens, wants to live as though freedom is an assumption, not a wish. However, the realities the Scotts experience curtail Eliza's sense of entitlement. They must live in a St. Louis jail while awaiting the outcome of the trial and avoid slave catchers who, as her mother reminds Eliza, could kidnap her and sell her—and then there's the cholera outbreak that kills regardless of race or gender. As she struggles with this contradiction, she manages to make decisions that jeopardize her, her family, and her community. The narrow-escape scenarios MacColl and Nichols create shouldn't lead readers to cheer Eliza's pluck so much as to shake their heads at her foolhardiness—and in the antebellum United States, such foolhardiness would have led to sexual violence, if not death. While most middle-grade readers may not know this, presenting it as otherwise, even in a fictional frame, does both them and history a disservice. It's understandable to want to create spunky historical heroines, but some children in the past weren't free to be headstrong—their survival depended on caution. To write fiction otherwise becomes gross revisionism. (author's note, sources, further reading) (Historical fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews