Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.Ī picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006).Īn NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.

While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor-such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books-reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. The illustrations, in hues of brown, green, and blue, successfully evoke the small, Western town and the mountains the humans and animals have faces that display an animation aesthetic.Ī wild ride through an impressive bit of history.Ī memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon. From the moment Mary rides into town, readers will be hooked. Charles does a fine job of shaping a suspenseful story from few historical details, inventing some dialogue and rearranging the timeline a bit, as she describes in her author’s note. Her bravery is remembered in Cascade, and now young readers can be inspired by it too. With her map- and star-reading skills, her trained eagle, her long gun, her courage, and her determination, Mary rides for eight years, into her 70s. She shows off her skills, and she gets the job, the first black woman in the country to do so. But Mary is determined to show the hiring manager that she can outperform any of the male candidates. The stagecoach driver also acts as guard against outlaws and wild animals one needs to be “smart, tough, unshakable.…Mary Fields is all of those things.” Of course, no one believes that a woman, much less a former slave, can do this job.

Telegraphs and trains bring supplies and messages to Cascade, Montana, but to get through the mountains to St. Mary Fields, a woman and former slave, breaks barriers working as a stagecoach driver in 1895.

Fearless Mary by Tami Charles