Passenger on the Pearl

December 1, 2014

Gr 7-10-This title is an in-depth historical narrative concerning several people involved in an attempted slave escape in 1848. The Pearl was to ferry 13-year-old Emily Edmonson and scores of other runaway slaves from Washington DC down the Potomac River and up the Chesapeake Bay. However, the ship was captured before reaching free soil. Conkling narrates the tumultuous stories of Edmonson, her family, and the others involved, tracing their lives from their ill-fated jail escape to the slave auctions, the Deep South, and finally to freedom. Readers will discover how Edmonson came into contact with important figures in the antislavery movement, including Frederick Douglass, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Primary documents give an authentic voice to the text, including excerpts from Frederick Douglass's autobiography. Nineteenth-century plates, illustrations, photographic portraits, and posters enhance the text. Historical photographs of slaves and slave pens are particularly moving. Maps clearly outline the geography relevant to the narratives, and frequent text blocks separate contextual information from the primary narrative. This work covers information about slavery that is often not found in other volumes, such as the Second Middle Passage-the transportation of slaves from the Upper South to the Lower South-and the uncomfortable reality of slaves as "second wives" to white men. Conkling's work is intricate and detailed, and some readers may be overwhelmed by the vast number of names encountered here. Nevertheless, this is a strong and well-sourced resource.-Jeffrey Meyer, Mount Pleasant Public Library, IA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2014
In her first work of nonfiction for young readers (Sylvia & Aki, 2011), Conkling presents the true story of Emily Edmonson and her five siblings who escaped from slavery only to be caught and sent further south. Amelia Culver never wanted to marry, knowing marriage meant inevitable heartbreak when children were born into slavery and sold in the slave markets. But she married Paul Edmonson anyway, and sure enough, her children, upon reaching age 12 or 13, were taken and hired out in Washington, D.C. Her 13-year-old daughter Emily and Emily's siblings shared their mother's dream of freedom, and in 1848, they took part in what became the largest slave escape attempt in American history. Down the Potomac River they fled on the Pearl, and by the time they neared the Chesapeake Bay, they were captured and sold South, where Emily and her sister Mary were in danger of being sold into the sex trade. Eventually, they were returned to Virginia and ransomed with help from the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, whose sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, modeled characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin on Emily and Mary Edmonson. Clearly written, well-documented, and chock full of maps, sidebars, and reproductions of photographs and engravings, the fascinating volume covers a lot of history in a short space. Conkling uses the tools of a novelist to immerse readers in Emily's experiences. A fine and harrowing true story behind an American classic. (timeline, family tree, source notes, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)

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January 1, 2015
Amelia (Milly) Culver Edmonson, born a slave in 1782, wanted her progeny to enjoy what was denied her: freedom. Following her dream, six of her fourteen children boarded the schooner Pearl in Washington, DC, in April of 1848, joining seventy-six other slaves attempting to sail to freedom in the largest planned escape in the United States. This failed effort sets off a complex chain of events that provides a full picture of those working together to procure freedom, and the equally strong efforts of some government officials and slave traders to thwart their efforts. Central to this account are Milly's daughters Emily and Mary Edmonson, thirteen and fifteen respectively, who, with the financial help of New York sympathizers, have their freedom purchased six months after the aborted escape attempt. Conkling extrapolates from their story the circumstances of and negotiations for other captured slaves, including the horrific conditions in slave pens, the thriving illicit sex trade in New Orleans, and the splintered views of abolitionist groups. Copious sidebars and period illustrations and photographs, along with primary-source quotes (including those from Harriet Beecher Stowe's recounting of Milly Edmonson's story), provide further context. This ultimately triumphant account ends with a tally of Milly's dream: thirteen of her children were freed (the fate of the fourteenth is unknown). Appended with a timeline, an Edmonson family tree, source notes, bibliography, and an index (unseen). betty carter

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)