The Bell Rang

by James E. Ransome, James E. Ransome (Illustrator)

Overview

Recipient of a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award
A Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book of 2019

A young slave girl witnesses the heartbreak and hopefulness of her family and their plantation community when her brother escapes for freedom in this brilliantly conceived picture book by Coretta Scott King Award winner James E. Ransome.

Every single morning, the overseer of the plantation rings the bell. Daddy gathers wood. Mama cooks. Ben and the other slaves go out to work. Each day is the same. Full of grueling work and sweltering heat. Every day, except one, when the bell rings and Ben is nowhere to be found. Because Ben ran. Yet, despite their fear and sadness, his family remains hopeful that maybe, just maybe, he made it North. That he is free.

An ode to hope and a powerful tribute to the courage of those who ran for freedom, The Bell Rang is a stunning reminder that our past can never be forgotten.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442421134
Publisher:	Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Publication date:	01/15/2019
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	532,898
Product dimensions:	10.30(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	360L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

James E. Ransome’s highly acclaimed illustrations for Before She Was Harriet received the 2018 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. His other award-winning titles include the Coretta Scott King winner The Creation; Coretta Scott King Honor Book Uncle Jed’s Barbershop; Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt; and Let My People Go, winner of the NAACP Image Award. James is also a recipient of the ALA Children’s Literature Legacy Award. He frequently collaborates with his wife, author Lesa Cline-Ransome, and their books include Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams and Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis. James is a professor and coordinator of the MFA Illustration Graduate Program at Syracuse University. He lives in New York’s Hudson River Valley region with his family. Visit James at JamesRansome.com.

James E. Ransome’s highly acclaimed illustrations for Before She Was Harriet received the 2018 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. His other award-winning titles include the Coretta Scott King winner The Creation; Coretta Scott King Honor Book Uncle Jed’s Barbershop; Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt; and Let My People Go, winner of the NAACP Image Award. James is also a recipient of the ALA Children’s Literature Legacy Award. He frequently collaborates with his wife, author Lesa Cline-Ransome, and their books include Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams and Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis. James is a professor and coordinator of the MFA Illustration Graduate Program at Syracuse University. He lives in New York’s Hudson River Valley region with his family. Visit James at JamesRansome.com.

Editorial Reviews

…beautifully captures several days in the life of an enslaved girl living with her family on a plantation…Ransome doesn't shy away from the trauma of slavery, but he balances the terror that sits at the core of the story with moments of joy…The book's color palette, strong on grays and pale blues, conveys its honest yet hopeful depiction of its young narrator's situation…In The Bell Rang Ransome has given us a bittersweet slice of plantation life, one in which innocence, familial love and safety are juxtaposed with pain, loss and the resilience of the enslaved.

The New York Times Book Review - Ibi Zoboi

★ 11/19/2018
Bold, painterly spreads by Ransome (Before She Was Harriet) give shape to the lives of a slave family whose days are ruled by the overseer’s bell. On Monday, “The bell rings,/ and no sun in the sky./ Daddy gathers wood./ Mama cooks.” Daddy; Mama; their son, Ben; and the narrator, Ben’s little sister, sit close and share a meal. On Wednesday, Ben gives his sister a kiss and a handmade doll, whispering “Good-bye” before walking away with two companions. Thursday, the family realizes that Ben is really gone. “Overseer comes/ to our cabin./ Then dogs come./ Overseer hits Mama,/ then Daddy.” The other boys are found, but not Ben: “We pray/ Ben made it./ Free like the birds.” In an image of startling force, a flying swallow is seen darting off the last, blank page. Stories about escaping slaves often follow the journeys of those leaving; this one imagines what life was like for a family left behind. The recurring image of the bell throughout each day underscores the way slaves’ lives were continually regimented and surveilled. Ransome’s gracefully sculpted figures give Ben’s family heroic stature; his story makes their hunger for freedom palpable. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

A powerful tale of slavery and its two terrible options: stay or run.

starred review Booklist

[Ransome] succeeds in communicating the myriad and complex emotions of individuals choosing to flee chattel enslavement and the aftermath of those left behind. Without sugarcoating or minimizing the complexity of human emotion, the illustrations communicate what words cannot: the tender love of family, the cruelty of enslavement, the emptiness left after the loss of a loved one, and the ever-present dilemma of self-emancipation for those who lived in bondage.

Horn Book

With a text at once simple, rhythmic, and heartbreaking, Ransome conveys for a very young audience the grinding treadmill of slave labor and the impetus to leave loved ones for a chance at freedom.

BCCB

★ 2018-09-30

A girl's family life and plantation routines are interrupted when three enslaved boys run away.

Most days start the same way: The bell rings, Daddy collects wood, Mama prepares breakfast, they eat together. The narrator's brother, Ben, her parents, and the other slaves go to the fields while the girl stays with the young ones to play. On Wednesday, Ben surprises her with a handmade doll. On Thursday, Ben and his two friends are gone. There are tears; the narrator's parents are beaten, and other slaves look mad or sad. On Friday, the girl cannot eat or talk. On Saturday, there are horses and dogs; Ben's friends have been caught, but there is no sign of Ben. "Out comes the whip. / All night we cry and pray for Ben." On Sunday, Big Sam preaches near the creek, "of being free. / We sing. / We hope. / We pray / Ben made it. / Free like the birds. / Free like Moses. / No more bells." The final spread shows the girl looking out, with the single word "Monday…" and a bird flying away on the endpaper. The richly textured paintings make masterful use of light and space to create the narrator's world and interior life, from the glimmer of dawn as her father chops wood to her mother's fatigue and her own knowing eyes. Ransome's free-verse text is as accomplished as his glowing acrylics.

With spare text and gorgeous illustrations, this work represents a unique and engaging perspective on enslaved families. (author's note) (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews