Explore Canada’s Black History with new fiction

During Black History Month, take a look at two new books that explore facets of Black Canadian History. Karleen Bradford’s A Desperate Road to Freedom: The Underground Railroad Diary of Julia May Jackson is one of the latest titles in the Dear Canada series from Scholastic Canada. It’s the story of one girl’s journey from slavery in Virginia to a new life in Toronto, and then to Owen Sound, Ontario, where many escaped slaves settled.

Grease Town by Ann Towell takes readers to the 1860s and Canada’s first oil boomtown – Oil Springs in Ontario’s Sarnia area. Young Titus Sullivan becomes friends with a young black boy, the child of slaves who came to Canada on the Underground Railroad. Though the characters are fictitious, the novel is based on a race riot that occurred in Oil Springs, Ontario, on March 20, 1863.

(And watch for reviews of both these books in the April issue of Canadian Children’s Book News.)