Even if children are unfamiliar with the Underground Railroad, they will be intrigued by the silent events unfolding in Henry Cole's images, and caught up in reading the expressions on the faces of his characters.
In the opening scenes, a girl walks a cow through a pasture, accompanied by her cat, as a pack of five soldiers on horseback carrying a Confederate flag pass by. Cole's gently swirling graphite pencil markings against peach-toned pages of bare trees suggest an autumn wind. A woman hands the girl a basket, and she begins to collect root vegetables from the larder in the barn. Her cat stays close. The girl looks over her shoulder, to where the corn husks are drying. Someone is hiding there; a single eye is visible through an opening in the stalks.
Cole's next images indicate the girl's surprise. She runs to the house and drops her basket. After dinner, as if she's had time to think it through, the girl takes a roll, wraps it in her checkered napkin and steals away to the barn in the dark of night. She unwraps the napkin and leaves the food for the unseen guest. Smaller vignettes show that the girl brings other leftovers--a slice of pie, a chicken leg, always in a checkered napkin. The soldiers return, showing the man of the house a poster of an escaped slave, promising a reward. In an image that echoes the one of the visitor among the cornstalks, the girl spies on the soldiers from a cabinet beneath the staircase: only her eye is visible through a knothole. Cole visually ties the fates of the girl and the fugitive; her aid to the runaway puts her at risk, too.
Cole underscores this theme in other ways. After the soldiers depart, the girl returns to the barn to discover her guest has gone, but has left a thank-you gift in the form of a cornhusk doll, dressed in the checkered napkin. The Big Dipper hovers over the girl's shoulder as she sneaks food to the barn, and it's also the last full-page image in the book, viewed through her window, as if connecting her to the fugitive who follows the North Star to freedom.
The questions that arise from the engrossing events of the wordless story lead smoothly into a discussion of the Underground Railroad. Its travelers also had to be conducted silently, for protection. The large pages re-create the feeling of the vast expanses of territory that escaping captives needed to cover. The black-and-white graphite images suggest a time long ago, but also a world that perceived humanity divided into black and white. Cole beautifully portrays the bravery of both child and fugitive as they enter the gray area together. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness
Shelf Talker: This engrossing wordless tale makes an ideal entry point for a discussion of the Underground Railroad.