  | Follow me down to Nicodemus town : based on the history of the African American pioneer settlement Author: LaFaye, A. | |
| Price: $21.88 | ||
Summary:
When Dede sees a notice offering land for black people in Kansas, her family decides to quit sharecropping and become homesteading pioneers.
| Illustrator: | Tadgell, Nicole |
| Reading Counts Information: Interest Level: 3-5 Reading Level: 4.70 Points: 3.0 Quiz: 75052 | ||
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (11/01/18)
Booklist (12/01/18)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 12/01/2018 Growing up in the South during the 1870s, Dede dreams that someday she and her parents can stop sharecropping and start farming their own land. With hard work, long hours, and a bit of luck, they gather enough money to move to Kansas and claim “land for colored folks” near Nicodemus, a new town on the prairie. Treated kindly by their neighbors, they spend several years fencing, planting, and harvesting in order to prove their claim on the land. When they succeed, their community gathers to celebrate outside their dugout home. An appended note comments on sharecropping, the Exodusters, the forced removal of Native Americans from the Great Plains, and the history of Nicodemus. LaFaye, whose novel Worth (2004) won the Scott O’Dell Award, lets Dede tell her story and grounds it in engaging period details of her everyday experiences. In a series of emotionally resonant pencil-and-watercolor illustrations, Tadgell clearly expresses the aspirations, labors, and emotions of the main characters. An appealing picture book exploring a part of pioneer history that deserves to be more widely known. - Copyright 2018 Booklist.
