Review: Harriet and the Promised Land
Story and art combine powerfully to convey the desperate escape to freedom. Rhyming text and imaginative similes will also involve the reader.
What Parents Should Know
Story and art combine powerfully to convey the desperate
escape to freedom. Rhyming text and imaginative similes will
also involve the reader.
Common Sense Media Review
First published in 1968, this book has just as much impact
today in representing the lives of slaves who "work for your
master from your cradle to your grave." It's more mood piece
than biography, and the simple rhyme plays a supporting role,
allowing the reader to explore the story primarily through the
powerfully symbolic art.
Harriet made her escape in 1849, vowing to return to Maryland and help others flee. During the 1850s Harriet made 19 trips, leading about 300 slaves to freedom. While she shepherded them along the Underground Railroad, Harriet was known to threaten any slave attempting to turn back. The only choices for Harriet were freedom or death.
Jacob Lawrence uses strong, bold colors, and his partially abstract figures convey the universality of humankind. Art dominates each page, with white borders and a thin line. These lines sometimes encase the art and sometimes run off the page, creating movement in the illustrations. The page depicting Harriet using chickens as camouflage echoes an actual incident in which she released and chased after some hens she had bought to avoid being noticed by her former master.
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