STEALING FREEDOM

Inspired by a true story, the riveting novel of a young slave girl's harrowing escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

Twelve-year-old Ann Maria Weems works from sunup to sundown, wraps rags around her feet in the winter, and must do whatever her master or mistress orders - but she has something that many plantation slaves don't have: a wonderful family around her. To Ann, her teasing brothers, her older sister, and her protective and loving parents are everything.

And then one day, they are gone.

Overcome by grief after she is separated from her family by her master and shipped off as a housemaid, Ann learns something about independence and about love before the opportunity for escape arrives. Her only hope of stealing back her freedom and finding her family lies in a perilous journey: the Underground Railroad. Cutting her hair short, she dresses her like a boy and launches on a journey to Canada, her family, and finally to freedom.

The real Ann Maria Weems lived in the mid-1800s near the author's home in Maryland until she was a teenager. This fictionalized account of her extraordinary life is ideal for students, teachers, and parents hungry for interesting and informative reading in African-American history and the Underground Railroad.