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Freedom Business by Marilyn Nelson

Freedom Business

Including A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, A Native of Africa

By Marilyn Nelson
Illustrated by Deborah Muirhead

By Marilyn Nelson
Illustrated by Deborah Muirhead

Best Seller
Hardcover $18.95

Oct 01, 2008 | ISBN 9781932425574 | 6-9 years

Freedom Business by Marilyn Nelson
Hardcover
Oct 01, 2008 | ISBN 9781932425574

Hardcover
–

  • Hardcover $18.95

    Oct 01, 2008 | ISBN 9781932425574 | 6-9 years

*This title is not eligible for purchase to earn points nor for redemption with your code in the Reader Rewards program

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About Freedom Business

The true narrative of a slave from Africa, crafted in verse by Marilyn Nelson. Born an African prince, Broteer Furro was captured by slave traders at age six. As he stepped onto a cargo ship, the vessel’s steward purchased the boy and gave him a new name: Venture. He landed in Rhode Island and worked through a lifetime of slavery to buy not only his own freedom but the freedom of his wife and children. Remarkable in his own time for his ambition and physical stature, Venture Smith became history’s first man to document both his capture from Africa and life as an American slave. In this breathtaking volume, Marilyn Nelson’s poems sit opposite the text of Smith’s own narrative. Nelson’s controlled verse layers this edition with insight into Smith’s stoic eighteenth-century prose. Deborah Dancy’s stark watercolor collages highlight the tension between the economical language of the narrative and the turbulent emotion within the poems.

Also by Marilyn Nelson

Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color
Fortune's Bones
Carver
See all books by Marilyn Nelson

Product Details

Category: Children’s Picture Books

Hardcover | $18.95
Published by Front Street
Oct 01, 2008 | 72 Pages | 6 x 10 | 6-9 years | ISBN 9781932425574

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Praise

* “It’s surprising that this essential part of American biography and history isn’t more widely known.” –Booklist, starred review

* “An astonishing, heartbreaking cycle of poems. . . . Tragic, important, breathtaking. (author’s, artist’s notes)” –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“The poems have both the sense of natural speech and of oratory, giving rhythmic majesty to intensely detailed physical and emotional landscapes.” –School Library Journal

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