Flight to Freedom, The Story of the Underground Railroad by Henrietta Buckmaster. Eighteen years after Buckmaster wrote Let My People Go, she wrote this work, which concerns much of the same material but which is geared toward younger readers. Chapters are shorter and less detailed and her style is more accessible. I am glad I read this book first because it provided a scaffolding for Let My People Go.
Let My People Go by Henrietta Buckmaster. This seems to have been Buckmaster’s first book. It came out in 1941, and recounts the highly dramatic and complex story of slavery in America, of the forces that sought to hold onto it and the forces that wanted to abolish it. Here is history where congressional acts, culminating in the Fugitive Slave Act, could lead to death or bondage, even for people who should by any measure be considered free. If we think our country is polarized now, this book will wake us up to just how bad polarization can become. Long before the Civil War, people of both races faced life and death decisions in seeking their own freedom or in following their consciences.
This work also disabuses anyone of the notion that the slaves were docile and submissive; rather, they were ingenious in using their limited agenc…
All the Living, A Novel of a Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by Henrietta Buckmaster. To depict a figure as illustrious a Shakespeare in a work of fiction requires a courageous writer. Buckmaster tackles this task with energy; scenes spring to life and a very human Will emerges. Literature and life are entangled; we come to know the Fair Youth and the Dark Lady of the sonnets as complex characters and to appreciate the ominous threat the enticements of the Lady bring to his marriage with the stoical Anne Hathaway.
The year is 1600, and Shakespeare is obsessed with his latest project : writing Hamlet.
The first half of the book takes place in London, where Shakespeare and his partners at the Globe mount plays, drink boisterously in public rooms, and find themselves embroiled in palace intrigue. The abortive coup against Elizabeth I ends with the execution …
All About, Sir Walter Raleigh by Henrietta Buckmaster. This is Buckmaster’s contribution to a series of books (the All About series) for young readers. Sir Walter Raleigh emerges as a complex, heroic individual whose life of adventure is marked by great highs and lows. The book is an exciting read: Raleigh faced challenges in staying in the good graces of Elizabeth I and then James. Though Raleigh himself was straightforward and honest in his dealings, he was often at the mercy of duplicitous and treacherous friends who plotted against him. They were sometimes successful, and he was in and out of the Tower of London several times during the course of this story. On several occasions, his popularity with the people saved him from execution. Among his great achievements were his expeditions to the New World. In Guiana he made friends with the local population and allied with…
