Out from This Place

Obi and Easter Trilogy #2

by Joyce Hansen

A fourteen-year-old black girl tries to find a fellow ex-slave, who had joined the Union army during the Civil War, during the confusing times after the emancipation of the slaves.

Genres: Historical Fiction

135 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Joyce Hansen has been writing books and stories for children and young adults for over twenty years. Joyce was born and raised in New York City, the setting of her early contemporary novels. She grew up with two younger brothers and her parents in an extended family that included aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, all living nearby in the Morrisania section of the Bronx.

Attending Bronx public schools, she graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1960. While working secretarial jobs during the day, Joyce attended Pace University in New York City at night, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree. She then began her teaching career in the New York City public schools and earned a Master of Arts degree from New York University. She also taught writing and literature at Empire State College (State University of New York).

Joyce’s first children’s book, The Gift-Giver, published in 1980, was inspired by her own Bronx childhood and by her students. She continued to teach and write until retiring from teaching in 1995. Joyce Hansen presently lives in South Carolina with her husband and writes full-time.

Reviews

[Books Kids Like · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easter longs to go back for Jason. When the colonel she's working for is transferred to Charleston, she begs to go with him. As soon as they are near the Phillips Plantation, Easter steals away from camp. At the plantation, she approaches her friend, Rose, who works in the big house's kitchen. Easter is told that Jason is now the personal servant for Mrs. Phillips. Rose says that he's become an insufferable little snob. Easter arrives just in time to escape with many other slaves. She tricks Jason into going with her. They make their way to the coast and are transported to the Sea Islands by ferry. Put to work tending the cotton fields of the Williams Plantation, they earn a weekly wage and are promised ownership of the lands that they cultivate. When Mr. Reynolds, the Yankee overseer, leaves the plantation he gives Rayford, Rose's husband, the keys. Jason soon stops asking to go back to live with Missy (Mrs. Phillips). When Easter begins tending the young children and babies, Jason works her plot of land for the $2 per week wages. Then, the Missionary Society sends a teacher to the plantation. Easter learns to read and write. When Miss Grantley is transferred to another plantation school, Easter teaches the younger children the things she's learned. Through the years, Easter makes inquiries about Obi, but is never able to actually leave the plantation to find him. Then the war ends, and the Williams family returns to claim their plantation. The blacks who've worked their land for 3 years revolt when they find out that the promises of land were just hollow words. Rayford is killed and several men are seriously hurt before Mr. Williams agrees to give the blacks the uncleared portion of his property. Jason joins a traveling medicine show, and Easter decides it is time for her to further her education and find Obi. As she makes arrangements to travel to the Philadelphia School for Colored Youth, Obi is on his way back to South Carolina.
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com