Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

Corretta Scott King Award

Elijah is an eleven year old boy who lives in Buxton, Canada. This story was set during the time of slavery and Buxton was a settlement of runaway slaves and of freedom. Elijah is the son of two slaves who made it to freedom, and is the first child in the settlement to be born free. Elijah is considered “fra-gile” by his mother and others in the community. Elijah is concerned he will always be fragile until he is forced to go with Mr. Leroy to America to find the preacher because the preacher stole Mr. Leroy’s money. Mr. Leroy saved the money to buy his family out of slavery and he gave it to the preacher to purchase Mr. Leroy’s family. The problem with going with Mr. Leroy was that Mr. Leroy died before they could find the preacher. Elijah had to decide on his own what to do, find the preacher or go back to Buxton on his own. He decided to find the preacher, but the preacher was already dead. Elijah also found some run away slaves chained-up and decided to save them. The only one he was able to save was the baby, Hope. This book is a coming-of-age book in which the main character, Elijah is confronted with some harsh realities. He faces deceit, the meaning of freedom, the cruelness of others, greed, revenge, and death. This book is an historical fiction book about hope and freedom. Elijah of Buxton is a wonderful, believable book that gives the reader some insight of how difficult it was to grow up and deal with the challenges of life. Many of the aspects of this book are timeless and can be related to our world today by many of our youth.