Books with title Henry's Freedom Box

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 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.

Had the story not been documented, one would believe that the story of a fugitive slave shipping himself to freedom by freight mail was merely a urban legend. In Henry Freedom's Box this unbelievable but daring true story is brought to life. The story authored by Ellen Levine succesfully traces Brown's early life to his ultimate escape to freedom at the age thirty-three. Award-winning illustrator Kadir Nelson creates such realistic intimacy with his muted but intense illustrations of former Virginia slave Henry "Box" Brown. In just two pages, the artist convincingly conveys the painful and risktaking trip of Mr. Henry "Box" Brown. This scene, this story will touch any person who can empathize with any harrowing escape.