Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

Elijah considers himself fra-gile. As the first freeborn child in the community of Buxton, Ontario, Elijah has a carefree life. He fishes, goes to school and helps his neighbors and family with the chores. He has heard about the horrors of slavery from his parents and elders in the community, but never experienced them. That changes when he goes to Michigan to help a neighbor try to retrieve money stolen from him he was going to use to buy his family out of slavery. In his search he comes across some runaway slaves that were captured and being taken back to the South, causing Elijah to confront the horrors of slavery. The story lovingly details life in a rural community in the 1850s. An afternote tells about the community of Buxton and how it came to be founded. A 2007 Newbery Honor Winner. (Elijah of Buxton, Christopher Paul Curtis, Scholastic Press, 2007.)