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Ranger in Time #3
Long Road to Freedom (Ranger in Time #3)
Ranger, the time-traveling golden retriever, is back for the third book in Kate Messner's new chapter book series. This time, he helps two kids navigate the Underground Railroad! Ranger is a time-traveling golden retriever with search-and-rescue training. In this adventure, he goes to a Maryland plantation during the days of American slavery, where he meets a young girl named Sarah. When she learns that the owner has plans to sell her little brother, Jesse, to a plantation in the Deep South, it means they could be separated forever. Sarah takes their future into her own hands and decides there's only one way to run -- north.
160 pages, Library Binding
First published December 29, 2015
86 people are currently reading
516 people want to read
About the author
Kate Messner
124 books1,670 followersKate Messner is an award-winning author, TED 2012 speaker, and former middle school English teacher. Her books for kids include THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z.,SUGAR AND ICE, and EYE OF THE STORM (Walker/Bloomsbury Dec. 2010) the MARTY MCGUIRE series (Scholastic), SEA MONSTER'S FIRST DAY, and OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW (Chronicle, Books). Kate also wrote SPITFIRE and CHAMPLAIN AND THE SILENT ONE, both Lake Champlain historical novels published by North Country Books.
Kate lives with her family on Lake Champlain, where she loves to read, write, hike, swing on birch trees, and eat chocolate. She also hangs out in various places online.
Visit Kate's website: http://www.katemessner.com
Find Kate on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/KateMessner
...or follow her on Twitter - @katemessner
Kate lives with her family on Lake Champlain, where she loves to read, write, hike, swing on birch trees, and eat chocolate. She also hangs out in various places online.
Visit Kate's website: http://www.katemessner.com
Find Kate on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/KateMessner
...or follow her on Twitter - @katemessner
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews
March 21, 2016
Ahaha, sweet revenge! My daughter thought I was pretty funny when I got choked up reading Charlotte's Web, but she was the one crying when we wrapped up Long Road to Freedom. I acknowledged that goodbyes were hard, but was secretly gleeful that someone got her.
Messner really walks a delicate line here, and I think she does it beautifully. The book is captivating--the hooks are so good that my daughter always begs for one more chapter at bedtime. It covers a very serious subject in a way that is honest but not too scary, and Messner incorporates historical facts and figures in ways that don't jar the narrative. This book is really excellent for the intended age group.
Messner really walks a delicate line here, and I think she does it beautifully. The book is captivating--the hooks are so good that my daughter always begs for one more chapter at bedtime. It covers a very serious subject in a way that is honest but not too scary, and Messner incorporates historical facts and figures in ways that don't jar the narrative. This book is really excellent for the intended age group.
October 18, 2016
Ranger is such an appealing hero, especially since he doesn't know he is one. As a dog, all he knows is that when his time traveling first aid kit hums, its time to go help someone. Messner has created an appealing historical fiction series that draws kids in with it's time traveling dog as the main character. Students at my school really like this series. This series along with Lauren Tarshis's I Survived series are encouraging students to read historical fiction who would otherwise never pick it up because history is 'boring'. But in this volume of the series, history is definitely not boring as Ranger sets off to help a young slave girl and her brother escape servitude. There is plenty of excitement as Sarah and her brother try to work their way north to Philadelphia only to discover that Pennsylvania may not be far enough. Along the way Ranger helps them avoid wolves and slave catchers. The book contains plenty of excitement and tension while still conveying the drive for freedom that lead so many to accept the risks involved. The book is child appropriate while still showing the value of freedom. As always, Messner includes end notes that explain where she got her facts and which parts of the story are real. I love reading these notes and hearing about the research that Messner does to make her stories feel so real. A great series for young dog or history lovers that I hope will continue for a while.
January 19, 2016
Another great adventure starring everyone's favorite time traveling Golden Retriever! This time Ranger is helping two children escape from slavery in the late 1840s. When Sarah learns that her younger brother is about to be sold South, she does not wait for anyone to save them. Instead she takes matters into her own hands and with the help of some good advice, follows the river north to Philadelphia. This story does not downplay the horrors of slavery, but presents it in an age-appropriate way. It contains an excellent author's note detailing what is truth and what is fiction, as well as several pages of books for further reading. Another solid entry in this fabulous series. Highly recommended for grades 2 & up.
April 2, 2016
I read this book to my third grade class. They thought it was awesome because a boy and girl were trying to escape from a slave plantation and they got to learn a lot about the Underground Railroad and about the life of slaves. It was a wonderful adventure story and my students grew to like the characters very much and worried about what would happen to them. They want me to read another book in this series.
March 25, 2018
This book has to deal with slaver in the 1800's. I love these books because they are historical-fiction. I'm just glad slavery is over.
I like that I could comprehend the entire book. The reason why I gave it a 4 star rating though is because there wasn't enough suspense. I probably would have given it a 3 star rating if I didn't like history so much.
I did like the content of the book. Messner didn't jump around in her writing. It all went in Chronicle logical order. I don't like books that you actually have to think about who's talking.
I like that I could comprehend the entire book. The reason why I gave it a 4 star rating though is because there wasn't enough suspense. I probably would have given it a 3 star rating if I didn't like history so much.
I did like the content of the book. Messner didn't jump around in her writing. It all went in Chronicle logical order. I don't like books that you actually have to think about who's talking.
February 28, 2018
It was a good book.
April 23, 2024
Read with my daughter. Loved it. I think it's a wonderful story to help supplement the discussions of slavery and the Underground Railroad.
January 9, 2019
A nice short read about slavery
September 28, 2020
I loved that it taught about the slaves!
December 30, 2015
I am definitely a fan of this series, because of the interesting way historical information is shared and because of the way this author documents her own research and fact-finding at the end of the books. This story follows Ranger as he helps a brother and sister leave a southern plantation and they depend on the network of Underground Railroad locations for safe travels along the way. I hope there are many more Ranger books to come!
March 16, 2016
My 7 yr old daughter has eagerly awaited the publishing of this book. I ordered it from the library as soon as I could and gave it to her. When she was done reading it, she came to me with it clutched to her chest, "I just wish this series was already finished so I wouldn't have to wait for the next book.". Then she tossed the book at me and said, "Here read it.". So I did.
High adventure. Good connection with the main characters. Great history lesson.
High adventure. Good connection with the main characters. Great history lesson.
December 7, 2019
{My thoughts} – Sarah and Jesse are both slaves. Their mom passed away and their dad ran away in hopes of getting North and buying their freedom.
One day Sarah overhears that their Master is going to sell Jesse. She isn’t okay with this and knows that he wouldn’t survive down South as a worker in the cotton fields. He had a wonderful talent with animals but in a field is an altogether different story.
She decides to take things into her own hands. She gets together a bag and finds her brother and together they go on the run. Right before they are able to leave the plantation Ranger finds them.
He sticks with them, protects them, keeps them safe. They go on a long journey that causes them to run, hide, look over their shoulders and hope to not be caught.
Eventually they get somewhere semi safe, but soon a new law is passed. That law makes it so they aren’t safe anymore and they end up on the move to find safety again. This time they are headed to Canada with a lot of help on their side.
If your interested in their story and learning how it ends, this book is perfect! I really enjoyed reading through it and learning about what Sarah and Jesse had gone through. It’s true to what might have happened to any runaway slaves in that time period.
One day Sarah overhears that their Master is going to sell Jesse. She isn’t okay with this and knows that he wouldn’t survive down South as a worker in the cotton fields. He had a wonderful talent with animals but in a field is an altogether different story.
She decides to take things into her own hands. She gets together a bag and finds her brother and together they go on the run. Right before they are able to leave the plantation Ranger finds them.
He sticks with them, protects them, keeps them safe. They go on a long journey that causes them to run, hide, look over their shoulders and hope to not be caught.
Eventually they get somewhere semi safe, but soon a new law is passed. That law makes it so they aren’t safe anymore and they end up on the move to find safety again. This time they are headed to Canada with a lot of help on their side.
If your interested in their story and learning how it ends, this book is perfect! I really enjoyed reading through it and learning about what Sarah and Jesse had gone through. It’s true to what might have happened to any runaway slaves in that time period.
June 12, 2020
The combination of an empathetic golden retriever who has been trained in search and rescue efforts and who possesses a first aid kit that allows him to travel back and forth through time with some stops on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War is irresistible. Well-researched and written with a full awareness of the audience, this book follows Ranger as he comes to the rescue of Sarah and her younger brother, Jesse, both enslaved on a Maryland plantation. Sarah had hoped that her brother would be safe, but once she learns that their owner plans to sell the boy to a plantation owner in the South, she decides that Jesse must flee. Because the Fugitive Slave Act meant that the youngsters weren't free and could be brought back to Maryland by slave catchers, they had to keep moving. This book provides insight in that law and those times through a sympathetic story. Interested readers will find the back matter with additional information valuable and will want to check out the sources. This is a great way to engage youngsters in history and various acts of heroism and rebellion as well as self-empowerment.
November 14, 2018
Ranger in Time is one of the better little series from Scholastic, about a search-and-rescue trained golden retriever who occasionally goes back in time to help children in distress. In this book he returns to the Civil War, where Sarah and her little brother Jesse are motherless slaves living on a plantation. Sarah learns her brother is about to be sold and separated from her forever. They determine to find a way to stay together, and thus begin their adventure to freedom - all the way to Canada, with the help of Ranger. This series is good to teach not only history, but also empathy and kindness. The author uses many "real people" and places, and tops it all of with her very interesting "Author Notes", followed up with "Further Reading" suggestions.
January 5, 2020
I read this with my 3rd grade son even though it is his reading level, we have been enjoying this series as his bedtime reading. Sarah and Jesse are young slaves who have found out that Jesse is about to be sold. Their mother has died and Sarah, as the oldest, decides they need to escape the plantation. Ranger, the time travelling dog, appears and helps them find safety and freedom.
This was a great intro to The Underground Railroad and slavery in an understandable way for mid elementary aged kids. I love that there are harrowing moments, but the kids and Ranger are brave and show perseverance. My son and I love this series!
This was a great intro to The Underground Railroad and slavery in an understandable way for mid elementary aged kids. I love that there are harrowing moments, but the kids and Ranger are brave and show perseverance. My son and I love this series!
February 15, 2020
Echoing my review of #1 in this series, Rescue on the Oregon Trail, I will say Kate Messner has done it again with Long Road to Freedom, #3 in the Ranger in Time series. Messner does exactly what you will hope a historical fiction novel for a young audience will do: keep the reader engaged, get the reader emotionally involved, teach the reader a bit about history, and spark the reader's thirst for more information about this time period. It scores high marks on all of these criteria with my 6.5 year old, who begged for another chapter every time I stopped reading. We finished the book in 3 days!
Messner does a wonderful job of weaving meticulously-researched history into her narrative, without weighing it down with extraneous facts. I love how she wove actual documented (but not well known) heroes from the Underground Railroad, and particularly Black heroes, into her the story.
A book for very young children centering the story of enslaved children is a delicate balancing act: how to communicate the horror of slavery effectively without whitewashing it, but also allowing the book to be mass-marketed to a young audience? Messner achieves this by centering the immediate threat on the possibility of a beloved younger sibling being sold into even more perilous conditions, facing nearly certain death. The only dispute I have with the presentation of the story in general is that their escape seemed unrealistically easy (though my 6 year old was gasping with suspense throughout) and I'm always sensitive that books that center the exceptional stories of people who were able to escape from enslavement seem to suggest to young readers that anyone with enough courage could have escaped, which was certainly not the case.
What I thought was most powerful in terms of a history lesson for my son was how the Fugitive Slave Act was presented in the plot. I feel like, at age 6, my son has more of an appreciation (with profound emotional depth) of the devastation that the Fugitive Slave Act had on the population of formerly enslaved people who had liberated themselves than I ever did in history class at age 16. The unfairness of slavery already rightly upsets him, but presenting this profoundly evil obstacle after he had already been emotionally invested in these characters was wonderfully effective.
We both really appreciated the author's notes at the end that explained much of the research she put into this story, and we have reserved some of her recommended books.
Can't wait to read another in this series!
Messner does a wonderful job of weaving meticulously-researched history into her narrative, without weighing it down with extraneous facts. I love how she wove actual documented (but not well known) heroes from the Underground Railroad, and particularly Black heroes, into her the story.
A book for very young children centering the story of enslaved children is a delicate balancing act: how to communicate the horror of slavery effectively without whitewashing it, but also allowing the book to be mass-marketed to a young audience? Messner achieves this by centering the immediate threat on the possibility of a beloved younger sibling being sold into even more perilous conditions, facing nearly certain death. The only dispute I have with the presentation of the story in general is that their escape seemed unrealistically easy (though my 6 year old was gasping with suspense throughout) and I'm always sensitive that books that center the exceptional stories of people who were able to escape from enslavement seem to suggest to young readers that anyone with enough courage could have escaped, which was certainly not the case.
What I thought was most powerful in terms of a history lesson for my son was how the Fugitive Slave Act was presented in the plot. I feel like, at age 6, my son has more of an appreciation (with profound emotional depth) of the devastation that the Fugitive Slave Act had on the population of formerly enslaved people who had liberated themselves than I ever did in history class at age 16. The unfairness of slavery already rightly upsets him, but presenting this profoundly evil obstacle after he had already been emotionally invested in these characters was wonderfully effective.
We both really appreciated the author's notes at the end that explained much of the research she put into this story, and we have reserved some of her recommended books.
Can't wait to read another in this series!
July 7, 2017
This is the third book in the series, but the first one I've read. The story of two slave children escaping to the north was compelling and I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the setting throughout the book. It reminded me of the Magic Tree House series which I loved reading with my children. The time traveling dog is a sweet character...I'm a sucker for a dog story! It would be a great series for 3rd-4th grade readers interested in historical fiction.
July 4, 2017
Kate Messner does an excellent job of combining fiction and non-fiction to share realistic fiction books that are interesting and entertaining. As a third grade teacher, I will be sure to have the Ranger in Time series in my classroom library for students to enjoy and to spark interest in historical events that they might want to research further.
July 22, 2017
With the help of a first aid kit, Ranger travels in time to 1850 to help Sarah and Jesse escape from slavery. In the opening, Sarah learns that her brother Jesse is going to be sold to another plantation. She decides that the only thing to do is to run away. With Ranger's help and several individuals along the way, they are able to make it safely to freedom.
November 12, 2019
I've read a few in this series and really enjoy them. They are entertaining and Kate does a masterful job of weaving in details about the various historical settings and trials experienced. It leaves you wanting to go on the next adventure with Ranger, and with an unexpected education! What a bonus!
February 27, 2021
Kate Messner did it again. I really like this series for review historic events with my two first graders. They are interested and excited for this book because we were just doing an overview of slavery in our history lessons. Good book. Good references. I can’t wait for my library to get the rest of them in for me to read.
March 12, 2021
I was very surprised when I figured out Ranger could travel through time, but also when Jessie was surrounded by the wolves, I was very surprised and scared for Jesse. I was thinking, "Oh no, it's the end for him." But how Ranger managed to save him was just incredible.
When the neighbors all barged into the farm house, that surprised me a lot.
When the neighbors all barged into the farm house, that surprised me a lot.
October 8, 2022
I didn't find this installment as gripping as some of the others, but I have read better books about escaping slavery, while many of the other Ranger in Time books cover less frequently fictionalized topics. This is still perfectly appropriate and engaging for the target age group, and the historical notes in the back are excellent.
November 21, 2017
Fast-paced read for elementary kids learning about the Underground Railroad. I like how the author explains at the end of each book what was real and what wasn’t fir the young readers. Read to my 7 year-old son.
April 30, 2018
my favorite character was sarah because she was very brave and faithful, i was surprized that ranger was such a good dog and loved sarah and jesse so much, i would not change the ending because it is happy and just the way i would want it to be.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 13, 2020
My 8yr old recommended this book to me as we have been talking and learning about slavery, freedom and a few more points of American History. This book makes it feel more real by putting you on the shoes of fugitive slaves moving along the Underground Railroad. Beautifully written and made more exciting by the acts of Ranger the dog.
I’m now starting on the rest of the series.
I’m now starting on the rest of the series.
December 6, 2023
My son (9) told me to read this one because he loved it. It was actually pretty good for a kids book. I like the work the author put in to teach about historical events. I would read more of the series.
April 6, 2024
A story about a dog who can travel in time. He has a old metal first aid kit which starts to hum when it is time for him to travel. In this book in the series Ranger travels back in time to the civil war to help two children who are escaping slavery.
June 17, 2017
I support independent bookstores. You can use this link to find one near you: http://www.indiebound.org
November 13, 2017
I liked it because it was a story that was about freedom, and some kids got help by a dog named ranger.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews