Time out with MLK and CPC
I finished Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis today. The book received a Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Honor a week ago. I'm glad, because it means that many more people will read this book. (I would have read it anyway, because I'm a Christopher Paul Curtis fan.)

It seemed fitting that I would finish the book today, when people pause and remember the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, to relect on where we've come as a nation, and where we still need to go.

It will open kids' eyes, especially, to the reality of slavery, when they see it filtered through the "fra-gile" eyes of Curtis's 11-year-old narrator, Elijah, the first freeborn child born in Buxton (also known as Raleigh, Canada West). Elijah knows that people who were former slaves are different, but he doesn't know why, until he goes on a rescue mission to Michigan. I'm not going to give away the plot, or what happens, but this book will make you cry, even as you cheer for Elijah.