Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: The Underground Abductor (An Abolitionist Tale about Harriet Tubman)
Registered by 
GoryDetails
of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 10/20/2015
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
GoryDetails of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 10/20/2015 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
I enjoyed Hale's A Donner Dinner Party graphic-novel account of the tragic Donner party, and went looking for more of his "hazardous tales". This one deals with Harriet Tubman and other parties involved in the Underground Railroad. (As with the rest of the series, it's narrated by Revolutionary War spy Nathan Hale, who - in this universe - somehow acquired knowledge of future history, and is regaling his hangman and a British officer with these stories by way of delaying his own inevitable fate.)
The mix of humor and the often-dark historical facts makes for an intriguing read. From the opening jokes on the endpapers and Hale's title-page disclaimer ("The lantern on the cover is for dramatic lighting. Nobody sneaking through a forest would carry anything that bright"), we get to our first meeting with a very young slave girl named Araminta. Her trials and that of her family persist as she grows up, and eventually she's motivated to try and reach the free North - and manages to do so despite a huge number of dangers, adopting the name "Harriet Tubman" to help avoid recapture. But this isn't enough for her; she goes back to save more of her family members, and then goes again, and again, and again...
The book highlights both sides of the slavery question, and many aspects of the participants in the Underground Railroad, including the risks they ran if discovered. We see Nat Turner's vision-inspired bloody rebellion, and the backlash it created. (Frederick Douglass makes an appearance too, but as he's not the star of the book he only gets a mini-biography drawn in very small images, "Tiny Frederick Douglass". Douglass does not like this one bit ("I am not tiny!").)
Very effective and involving account!
[There's a TV Tropes page on Tubman.]
The mix of humor and the often-dark historical facts makes for an intriguing read. From the opening jokes on the endpapers and Hale's title-page disclaimer ("The lantern on the cover is for dramatic lighting. Nobody sneaking through a forest would carry anything that bright"), we get to our first meeting with a very young slave girl named Araminta. Her trials and that of her family persist as she grows up, and eventually she's motivated to try and reach the free North - and manages to do so despite a huge number of dangers, adopting the name "Harriet Tubman" to help avoid recapture. But this isn't enough for her; she goes back to save more of her family members, and then goes again, and again, and again...
The book highlights both sides of the slavery question, and many aspects of the participants in the Underground Railroad, including the risks they ran if discovered. We see Nat Turner's vision-inspired bloody rebellion, and the backlash it created. (Frederick Douglass makes an appearance too, but as he's not the star of the book he only gets a mini-biography drawn in very small images, "Tiny Frederick Douglass". Douglass does not like this one bit ("I am not tiny!").)
Very effective and involving account!
[There's a TV Tropes page on Tubman.]
Journal Entry 2 by GoryDetails at Woodlawn Cemetery, 101 Kinsley St. in Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Friday, October 23, 2015
GoryDetails at Woodlawn Cemetery, 101 Kinsley St. in Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Friday, October 23, 2015
Released 8 yrs ago (10/23/2015 UTC) at Woodlawn Cemetery, 101 Kinsley St. in Nashua, New Hampshire USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
I left this book, bagged against the elements, on a bench in the cemetery, within view of some trees in full autumn foliage. Hope the finder enjoys the book![Update: After releasing this book, I learned that there's a statue of Tubman in Boston; I may have to hunt up another copy to release there someday...]
*** Released as part of the 2015 TICK TOCK release challenge, for the embedded "at" in the title. ***
