Synopses & Reviews
A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist. Henry "Box" Brown doesn't know how old he is. Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream seems farther away than ever when he is torn from his family and put to work in a warehouse. Henry grows up and marries, but he is again devastated when his family is sold at the slave market. Then one day, as he lifts a crate at the warehouse, he knows exactly what he must do: He will mail himself to the North. After an arduous journey in the crate, Henry finally has a birthday, his first day of freedom.
Review
"These powerful illustrations will make readers feel as if they have gained insight into a resourceful man and his extraordinary story." Publisher's Weekly
About the Author
Ellen Levine was born in New York City. She received her BA degree in Politics from Brandeis University, graduating Magna cum laude. She has a Master's degree in political science from the University of Chicago and a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law. She has worked in film and television, taught adults and immigrant teenagers in special education and ESL programs, and served a law clerkship with Chief Judge Joseph Lord, US District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania. A former staff attorney with a public interest law group, Levine now devotes her time to writing, lecturing, and teaching. She is on the faculty of Vermont College's MFA program in writing for Children and Young Adults. She divides her time between New York City and Salem, New York. Ellen Levine's books have won many awards and honors, including the Jane Addams Peace Award. Although she enjoys writing both fiction and nonfiction, most of Ellen's books for young readers have been nonfiction. "Writing nonfiction lets me in behind the scenes of the story. I enjoy learning new things and meeting new people, even if they lived 200 years ago."
Kadir Nelson is a critically acclaimed artist and illustrator. He has received many awards and honors for his children's books, including the 2009 Sibert Medal for We Are the Ship, a Coretta Scott King Award for Ellington Was Not a Street, written by Ntozake Shange, and the NAACP Image Award for Just the Two of Us, written by Will Smith. Nelson won a 2008 Caldecott Honor for Henry's Freedom Box, written by Ellen Levine. In this stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom, Nelson combined his own style of painting with a cross-hatched style of illustration he found used in a historical lithograph from 1850 that documented Henry's arrival to Philadelphia. "The challenge that comes with illustrating historical picture books is finding accurate references," states Nelson. "Deciphering between what is accurate, and what is not."