Book Review: Liberty Street

Ransom, Candice. Liberty Street. 1st ed. Walker Company, 2003.

Ransom bases her book on slave accounts and records of the original Liberty Street in Fredericksburg, where slaves used to walk and visit friends on Sunday afternoons.

"Liberty Street" by Candice Ransom is a picture book set in Fredericksburg during the Civil War. Liberty Street tells the story of two slaves, a mother and daughter, and the love and struggles they share in tragic times. Kezia and her mother must work all week except Sunday afternoons, when Missus Grace’s slaves are free to travel through town and visit friends. Glorious Sundays, when slaves through Fredericksburg walk along the dirt path they call Liberty Street, making small journeys that give them the only taste of freedom they can ever have. Soon after the mother enrolls her daughter, Kezia, in a secret school to learn to read and tries to earn extra money to buy her daughter’s freedom before she is bonded out to another family far away. Even though it is forbidden to slaves to go to school to learn to read and write Kezia's mother works frantically to earn extra money to buy Kezia’s freedom from Missus Grace before she is bonded out to another family far away.

I believe that Liberty Bell is a moving story of courage and love, and a testament to those in the antebellum South who risked all in the name of knowledge and freedom. This picture book shows struggle but gives a positive voice especially in relevence to fighting for your rights!


* Candice Ransom’s talent for researching and writing historical fiction triumphs in her latest work (Liberty Bell), based upon slave accounts and records of the original Liberty Street in Fredericksburg, Virginia.