Synopses & Reviews
"In 1854, Anthony Burns, a 20-year-old black man, was put on trial in Boston under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Retelling the events of the trial, which polarized the city, Hamilton shows the kind of political issue which brought the nation to fever pitch in the decade before the Civil War. Hamilton's biography is actually a 'docudrama' which centers on the often silent, mistreated, and humbled runaway slave. The insights Hamilton gives into the personal side of slavery are moving and unforgettable."--(starred) School Library Journal. "Does exactly what good biography for children ought to do: makes them feel what it was like to be that person in those times."--(starred) Horn Book.
About the Author
x Virginia Hamilton, storyteller, lecturer, and biographer, was born and raised in Yellow Springs, OH, which is said to be a station on the Underground Railroad. Her grandfather settled in the village after escaping slavery in Virginia.
x She was educated at Antioch College and Ohio State University and did further study in literature and the novel at the New School for Social Research.
x Virginia was the first African American woman to win the Newbery Award, for M.C. Higgins the Great. Since then, she has won three Newbery Honors and three Coretta Scott King Awards.
x In 1992, Virginia was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, which is presented every two years by the International Board on Books for Young People, in recognition of her entire body of work.
x Virginia writes first for the pleasure of using words and language to evoke characters and their world, and in historical accounts such as Anthony Burns, the lives of real people. Secondly, Hamilton writes to entertain, to inspire in people the desire to read on and on good books made especially for them.