Trouble Don't Last by Shelley Pearsall
	List Price:   $6.99 Unit Price:   $5.59 You Save:   $1.40 (20%) ISBN-10:   0440418119 ISBN-13:   9780440418115 Publisher:   Random House [IN]; Yearling Category:   Beginning Readers Pages:   256 Format:   Paperback; Digest format paperback Ages:   9 to 13
Subjects
CHILDREN'S FICTION
Description/Notes
TROUBLE Truth is, trouble follows me like a shadow. To begin with, I was born a slave when other folks is born white. My momma was a slave and her momma a slave before that, so you can see we are nothing but a family of trouble. Master sold Momma before I was even old enough to remember her, and two old slaves named Harrison and Lilly had to raise me up like I was one of their own, even though I wasn't. Then, when I was in my eleventh year, the old slave Harrison decided to jump into trouble himself, and he tried to run away. Problem was, I had to go with him. THE BROKEN PLATE It all started on a just-so day in the month of September 1859, when I broke my master's plate while clearing the supper table. I tried to tell Lilly that if Master Hackler hadn't taken a piece of bread and sopped pork fat all over his old plate, I wouldn't have dropped it. But Lilly kept her lips pressed tight together, saying nothing as she scraped the vegetable scraps into the hog pails. 'And Young Mas Seth was sticking his foot this-away and that-away, tryin to trip me up,' I added. Lilly didn't even look at me, just kept scraping and scraping with her big, brown hands. 'Maybe it was a spirit--could be Old Mas Hackler's dead spirit--that got ahold of me right then and made that plate fly right outta my hands.' Lilly looked up and snorted, 'Spirits. If Old Mas Hackler wanted to haunt this house, he'd go an' turn a whole table on its end, not bother with one little china plate in your hands.' She pointed her scraping knife at me. 'You gotta be more careful, Samuel, or they gonna sell you off sure as anything, and I can't do nothin to help you then. You understand me, child?' 'Yes'm,' I answered, looking down at my feet. Every time Lilly said something like this to me, which was more often than not, it always brought up the same picture in my head. A picture of my momma. She had been sold when I was hardly even standing on my own two legs. Right after the Old Master Hackler had died. Lilly said that selling off my momma paid for his fancy carved headstone and oak burying box, but I'm not sure all that is true. In my mind, I could see my momma being taken away in the back of Master's wagon, just the way Lilly told me. Her name was Hannah, and she was a tall, straight-backed woman with gingerbread skin like mine. Lilly said that she was wearing a blue-striped headwrap tied around her hair, and she was leaning over with her head down in her hands when they rode off. The only thing Lilly knew was that they took her to the courthouse in Washington, Kentucky, to sell her. After my momma had gone, it had fallen on Lilly's shoulders to raise me as if I was her own boy, even though she wasn't any relation of mine and she'd already had two sons and four daughters, all sold off or dead. But she said I had more trouble in me than all six of her children rolled up together. 'I gotta be on your heels day and night,' she was always telling me. 'And even that don't keep the bad things from happening.' When she was finished with the hog pails, Lilly came over to me. 'How's that chin doin?' She lifted the cold rag I'd been holding and looked underneath. 'Miz Catherine got good aim, I give her that.' After I had broken the china plate, Master Hackler's loud, redheaded wife, Miz Catherine, had flung her table fork at me. 'You aren't worth the price of a broken plate, you know that?' she hollered, and sent one of the silver forks flying. Good thing I had sense enough not to duck my head down, so it hit right where she was aiming, square on my chin. Even though it stung all the way up to my ear, I didn't make a face. I was half-proud of myself for that. 'You pick up every little piece,' Miz Catherine had snapped, pointing at the floor. 'Every single pi Eleven-year-old Samuel was born as Master Hackler’s slave, and working the Kentucky farm is the only life he’s ever known—until one dark night in 1859, that is.?With no warning, cranky old Harrison, a fellow slave, pulls Samuel from his bed and, together, they run. The journey north seems much more frightening than Master Hackler ever was, and Samuel’s not sure what freedom means aside from running, hiding, and starving. But as they move from one refuge to the next on the Underground Railroad, Samuel uncovers the secret of his own past—and future. And old Harrison begins to see past a whole lifetime of hurt to the promise of a new life—and a poignant reunion— in Canada. In a heartbreaking and hopeful first novel, Shelley Pearsall tells a suspenseful, emotionally charged story of freedom and family. Trouble Don't Last includes an historical note and map. From the Hardcover edition. * “This memorable portrayal . . . proves gripping from beginning to end.”–Starred, Publishers Weekly * “A thrilling escape story, right until the last chapter.”–Starred, Booklist “Strong characters and an innovative, suspenseful plot distinguish Pearsall’s first novel . . . A compelling story.”–School Library Journal “One of the best underground railroad narratives in recent years . . . This succeeds as a suspenseful historical adventure.”–Kirkus Reviews “Pearsall’s heartbreaking, yet hopeful story provides a fine supplement to lessons on slavery.”–Teacher Magazine AWARDS The 2003 Scott O’ Dell Award for Historical Fiction A Booklist Top 10 First Novel A Booklist Top Ten Historical Fiction for Youth From the Hardcover edition.