February 14, by Betsy Bird Leave a Comment. But of course the unspoken suggestion there is that this is history we never learned in school. Pretty much I can guarantee that unless you were part of the slightest sliver of students, odds are back in the day you had never heard of the Overground Railroad or The Great Migration. No series of rote facts, Overground Railroad puts you in the shoes of the ordinary people that had to leave everything and everyone they knew in search of a better life.
Historical events like The Great Migration are vague. This book hands young readers not just specifics. It hands them people they can get to know and care about. Ruth Ellen, Mama, and Daddy. Joining throngs of other people on the trains, going North. In the South they have to sit up front.
In the North they move to seats farther back in the train. All the while they eat the food packed for them, listen to Ruth Ellen read from her book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , and dream of the future. But at some point in the last three years their collective career just took off like a shot.
With that book, Cline-Ransome tipped the whole notion of a biography on its head. It was unique, interesting, riveting, and deserving of more awards than it received. It also allows for all kinds of different discussions With this book I was able to explain to my kids the difference between making black people sit at the back of a bus verses making them sit at the front of a train and why, in both cases, it was awful.
I took my time examining precisely how James Ransome put together this art, and the stylistic choices he made to support the narrative.
