Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis is the story of the first free born child of Buxton. After reading Curtis' The Watson's Go to Birmingham - 1963, I knew this was also going to be a book full of humor, drama, and adventure. At first we get a glimpse of how Elijah is just a mischievious boy who along with his friend Cooter get themselves into trouble by placing some toad in Elijah's mother's knitting basket and watch from afar as she gets her hand in there, just to be horrified by it. They, of course, are out rolling on the carpet laughing. What is even better is when Elijah thinks he has gotten away with it, but days later is taught a lesson by his mother when she places a snake in the cookie jar for when he goes to get some. Both his mom and dad have a blast doing this. There is also a time when in the story, Paul takes us to the day when Elijah is honored for being the first born free child of Buxton by Sir Frederick Douglas. He ends us throwing up all over him because Douglas kept throwing him up in the air with joy. There is also the Preacher whom I didn't like just from the start. There was always something about him I didn't like because of the way he manipulated Elijah into doing things. Later, Elijah finds out that he steals money from his good friend Mr. Leeroy who had been saving money to buy his family's freedom. He sets out in search to get his friend's money but only comes back to Buxton with a baby he was given by a slave family. Throughout the story we see a change of how Elijah starts showing traits of a young, responsible, courageous young man. Curtis does a great job of giving us a good sense of the slaves' way of speaking, because I found myself reading some parts over just to be able to read it and get the gist of things. Great book to be used during Black History Month in middle school or high school.
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