Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Okay, I admit that I could have posted on April 1st and just didn’t get to it; I’d posted the day before, however, and when push came to shove, I couldn’t quite make myself do it instead of other things. The 3rd, however, was General Conference Saturday, and the day we did Easter baskets, and then we packed up and stayed the night at my in-laws’ for Easter and more General Conference and my hubby’s birthday the next day. (Bless my mother-in-law–she totally made his birthday breakfast. My amazing family blows me away.) Posting, well…didn’t happen.

Obviously.

Today, however, as I was packing a variety of things to take to my niece so that SHE can take them to my family in Idaho this weekend, it occurred to me that if I finished BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom today, I could review that and return it to the library tomorrow. (Supposedly the library has downgraded their quarantine period for returns to 24 hours instead of 72, and while evidence suggests that it’s going to be a process and isn’t exactly happening yet–or at least not with consistency–one still wonders if that means that the items out limit will be going back down to fifty in the not-so-distant future. This is, in case you’re wondering, a concern, which is why returning any book possible has heightened appeal.) I did have to start it again–I’d gotten distracted–but since it’s picture book-ish, I still managed to finish it. Hence, this review!

I have to say, while the blank verse felt more like careful prose arranged in (with one exception) deliberate six-line stanzas, it was a powerful book. Michelle Wood’s illustrations added a great deal, and together she and Carole Boston Weatherford told a story that I hadn’t heard before. Just the idea of cramming my body into a box that size makes me shudder, but–what price freedom? While I found myself wishing that Henry’s story could have ended differently, family-wise, the truth felt heartbreakingly real. I’m not sure how young readers will react to the format, but the story is an amazing part of our history.

BOX is most definitely worth the read.