Frederick Douglass’ mother imparts 12 lessons, one for each mile she walks on her clandestine nighttime visits to him.

The author has taken as her inspiration the line from Douglass’ writings in which he remembers his mother teaching him that he was “somebody’s child.” Douglass was in fact separated from his mother as an infant and rarely saw her. She died when he was 7. In this story, she walks the 12 miles from plantation to plantation and shares with him what each means. The first mile is for forgetting about being tired, and the following miles are for praying, giving thanks to God, singing, smiling, hoping to live together as a family, dreaming about freedom and loving her son, among others. In this, her debut effort, Armand focuses on the positive aspects of maternal devotion and a mother’s dreams of greatness for her son. The full-page watercolor paintings capture the nighttime setting and depict a loving mother and child with no overt signs of the horrors of slavery. Unfortunately, the text is sometimes difficult to read on the dark background.

Share this with young readers as a series of homilies on dreams and a family love strong enough to overcome any adversity. (afterword) (Picture book. 3-6)

Frederick Douglass’ mother imparts 12 lessons, one for each mile she walks on her clandestine nighttime visits to him.

The author has taken as her inspiration the line from Douglass’ writings in which he remembers his mother teaching him that he was “somebody’s child.” Douglass was in fact separated from his mother as an infant and rarely saw her. She died when he was 7. In this story, she walks the 12 miles from plantation to plantation and shares with him what each means. The first mile is for forgetting about being tired, and the following miles are for praying, giving thanks to God, singing, smiling, hoping to live together as a family, dreaming about freedom and loving her son, among others. In this, her debut effort, Armand focuses on the positive aspects of maternal devotion and a mother’s dreams of greatness for her son. The full-page watercolor paintings capture the nighttime setting and depict a loving mother and child with no overt signs of the horrors of slavery. Unfortunately, the text is sometimes difficult to read on the dark background.

Share this with young readers as a series of homilies on dreams and a family love strong enough to overcome any adversity. (afterword) (Picture book. 3-6)

Lovely. But I would have liked a more thorough ending. Especially since it was based on Frederick Douglass ' life. ( )

Fredrick lived with his aunt because his mother was a slave, and worked on a farm 12 miles away from her. He lived with the aunt because his mother could not watch after him and work on the farm all day. Each night, Fredrick's mother walked the twelve long miles to see Fredrick. He explained to her that he could walk and see her, but she told him that the road was too long and that she knew the short way. Fredrick wanted to the know the short way, and so his mother explained it to him. Each mile she thought of something different. Her thoughts ranged from Fredrick to the hope for freedom, but each mile she thought of something else. She walked those twelve miles though for the love she had for her son, and the excitement to see him.Fredrick was sure that his mother had a love for him that was twelve miles long.

This was such a sweet book that described a mother's love for her son. Illustrations in the book depicted real characteristics of characters, and also scenes of farm work. The text mentions some conditions of slavery, which good make this a good text to use for social studies. The afterword explains that this story was inspired by Fredrick Douglass, who has made many contributions to American history. ( )

Poignant, beasutifully illustrated story based on the life of young Frederick Douglass. ( )