When Harriet Met Sojourner

by Catherine Clinton, Shane W. Evans (Illustrator)

Overview

The life stories of two pivotal figures in American history—Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth—are explored in this powerful text paired with spectacular artwork. "A beautiful, uplifting book that is sure to inspire interest in these strong, amazing women." (School Library Journal)

This powerful picture book relates the lives of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth on alternating pages, leading up to the day they likely met in Boston in 1864. Share this book in the classroom or at home as an introduction to these two American heroes. A strong companion to such books as Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom and Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad.

"Compellingly told with a sure storyteller’s cadence. Both women renamed themselves, taking ownership of their lives and leading and inspiring others on the road to freedom." (School Library Journal)

Shane W. Evans's art in When Harriet Met Sojourner was praised as having a "strength of line and eloquence of expression that would suit a mural and that will carry well in a group showing." (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books) His books include We March and 28 Days: Moments in Black History that Changed the World.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060504274
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/09/2021
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	430,555
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Catherine Clinton is the author of Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom and Fanny Kemble's Civil Wars. Educated at Harvard, Sussex, and Princeton, she is a member of the advisory committee to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, and holds a chair in U.S. history at Queen's University Belfast.

Shane W. Evans is the author and illustrator of Underground, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner, We March, and Olu’s Dream and the illustrator of more than forty books for children, including Chocolate Me!; Mixed Me!; and I Love You More Than . . . , all by Taye Diggs. He has exhibited his art all over the world, in West Africa, South Africa, and France and Chicago, New York, and other major U.S. cities. He has a home base in Kansas City, Missouri, where he runs Dream Studio, a studio that is open to the community. You can visit the work online at www.shaneevans.com and www.dreamstudio777.com.

Editorial Reviews

"Evans's mixed-media art, combining line, paint, and textiles in three-quarter-spread illustrations, has an epic yet contemporary tone; the images, dramatic portraiture, have a strength of line and eloquence of expression that would suit a mural and that will carry well in a group showing."

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Although the title raises different expectations, Clinton and Evans (previously paired for Hold the Flag High) deliver gripping parallel portraits of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, two remarkable women born into slavery whose paths cross here only on the final pages, in a meeting about which the author can do no more than speculate. Alternating between the two subjects, Clinton underscores their courage, perseverance and passion as each obtains her individual freedom and then campaigns against slavery. A personal tone and specific facts bring home the experience of slavery for the target audience without diluting too much of the horror but also without introducing concepts beyond their grasp: "Araminta's [Harriet Tubman's] parents loved and cherished their sons and daughters but could not protect them.... Two of her sisters were snatched away, stolen off and sold South-they were gone but never forgotten." As Harriet Tubman sews a quilt, Clinton notes, "like the quilt she worked on, one square at a time, she pieced together her plans for running off to the North." Evans builds on this motif, re-creating the appearance of stitches alongside his mixed-media compositions so that they look basted onto the background, itself resembling a collection of light-colored quilt squares and quilt tops. Some illustrations incorporate fabric scraps, subtly reinforcing the ideas that each woman assembled her own future, and that history can be made from the meeting, or joining together, of influential and inspiring people. Ages 5-7. (Nov.)

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Publishers Weekly

Gr 3-7- This powerful picture book relates the lives of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth on alternating pages, leading up to the women's meeting in Boston in 1864. Many parallels are drawn between these two legendary figures born about 25 years apart and in different areas of the country. Compellingly told with a sure storyteller's cadence, Clinton's chronicle does not spare readers the harshness of the subjects' young years; they suffered beatings, witnessed siblings and family members sold away, endured hard labor, and risked everything for freedom. Both women renamed themselves, taking ownership of their lives and leading and inspiring others on the road to freedom. Evans uses strong outlines to create striking images in rich earth tones. A patchwork motif pieces the text panels and illustrations together with stitches, echoing the quilts mentioned in the text. One expressive illustration depicts young Harriet Tubman with her arms stretched out against a tree whose branches are filled with birds, as she dreams of flying to freedom. The visual parallel is an image of Truth cradling a baby with a bird-filled tree behind her, yearning for freedom for herself and her children. No reports or notes exist from their meeting, so unfortunately the climactic event in this book is all conjecture. An epilogue briefly outlines the rest of their lives, but no source notes are given. Nonetheless, this is a beautiful, uplifting book that is sure to inspire interest in these strong, amazing women.-Robin L. Gibson, Granville Parent Cooperative Preschool, OH

School Library Journal

A patchwork motif visually pieces together the stories of the two redoubtable abolitionists, who met only once-in Boston in 1864-but who shared a passionate mission. Side text panels relate, in alternating spreads, the lives of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Clinton uses vivid language to sketch the broad outlines of their beginnings in slavery and their later careers as speaker for abolition and conductor on the Underground Railroad: "Isabella [Sojourner Truth] was tired of waiting, and broke the chains herself. She walked out and left slavery behind." Evans's mixed-media illustrations cleanly incorporate such textures as fabric and broad paint strokes, individual figures outlined with quick black lines that provide definition. The images themselves are expressive-a monumental Truth cradles a baby, a confident-looking Tubman holds a Union courier bag against a Stars-and-Stripes backdrop-and are "stitched" to the text panels. The actual meeting takes up only three spreads and is of necessity imagined (there is no written account), which results in something of an anticlimax, given the build-up. It's a nifty idea, but, alas, the vessel is somewhat stronger than its story. (Picture book/fictionalized nonfiction. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews

"This powerful picture book relates the lives of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth on alternating pages, leading up to the women’s meeting in Boston in 1864. Compellingly told with a sure storyteller’s cadence, Clinton’s chronicle does not spare readers the harshness of the subjects’ young years; they suffered beatings, witnessed siblings and family members sold away, endured hard labor, and risked everything for freedom. Both women renamed themselves, taking ownership of their lives and leading and inspiring others on the road to freedom. Evans uses strong outlines to create striking images in rich earth tones." — School Library Journal

“Clinton and Evans deliver gripping parallel portraits of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth.” — Publishers Weekly

“The compelling parallel narratives of two women ‘joined by a kinship of spirit’ still add up to a stirring history.” — ALA Booklist

"Evans's mixed-media art, combining line, paint, and textiles in three-quarter-spread illustrations, has an epic yet contemporary tone; the images, dramatic portraiture, have a strength of line and eloquence of expression that would suit a mural and that will carry well in a group showing." — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

From the Publisher

"Evans's mixed-media art, combining line, paint, and textiles in three-quarter-spread illustrations, has an epic yet contemporary tone; the images, dramatic portraiture, have a strength of line and eloquence of expression that would suit a mural and that will carry well in a group showing."

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

The compelling parallel narratives of two women ‘joined by a kinship of spirit’ still add up to a stirring history.

ALA Booklist

"Evans's mixed-media art, combining line, paint, and textiles in three-quarter-spread illustrations, has an epic yet contemporary tone; the images, dramatic portraiture, have a strength of line and eloquence of expression that would suit a mural and that will carry well in a group showing."

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books