The Freedom Maze

Mar 18, 2013 TheBookSmugglers rated it 5 of 5 stars

Originally posted on The Book Smugglers

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when I realised The Freedom Maze was something special. I felt its impact from the very start: I had barely started it and already had problems falling asleep because I kept thinking about what was happening to the protagonist and where the story might go. This is a book that works on every single level I can think of: from a storytelling point of view, as a coming of age tale, as a Speculative Fiction story, as a Hist...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Barbara Gordon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookish-child-mc

"In 1960, thirteen-year-old Sophie isn’t happy about spending summer at her grandmother’s old house in the Bayou. But the house has a maze Sophie can’t resist exploring once she finds it has a secretive and playful inhabitant.
When Sophie, bored and lonely, makes an impulsive wish inspired by her reading, hoping for a fantasy adventure of her own, she slips one hundred years into the past, to the year 1860. On her arrival she makes her way, bedraggled and tanned, to what will one day be her grand...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Jodi rated it 4 of 5 stars

First of all, I love the cover of this YA book! Which is of course is why I picked it up in the first place. No teens in fancy ball gowns looking much older then their years, thankyouverymuch!
The setting was delightful. How perfect to have a girl of the 1960s travel to the antebellum era and learn a thing or too about how it feels to be treated like less than a person because of the color of your skin. At first blush, it might seem just like another time traveling fantasy a la Edward Eager but t...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Elizabeth added it

Shelves: friends-wrote-these

It’s 1960, and 13-year-old Sophie is doomed to a boring summer with her aunt and ill grandmother on the decaying remains of what was, 100 years ago, a bustling Louisiana sugar plantation. Through the strange machinations of a Brer Rabbit-type “Creature” (with clear parallels to the Natterjack of Edward Eager’s The Time Garden , Sophie’s preferred reading material), Sophie is plunged back in time to the plantation’s heyday. She’s a direct descendant of the plantation owners and is recognized as f...more
It’s 1960, and 13-year-old Sophie is doomed to a boring summer with her aunt and ill grandmother on the decaying remains of what was, 100 years ago, a bustling Louisiana sugar plantation. Through the strange machinations of a Brer Rabbit-type “Creature” (with clear parallels to the Natterjack of Edward Eager’s The Time Garden , Sophie’s preferred reading material), Sophie is plunged back in time to the plantation’s heyday. She’s a direct descendant of the plantation owners and is recognized as family: but not as legitimate family. Everyone assumes she’s the love-child of one of the tearaway sons and his mulatto mistress. Consequently she’s taken to be a light-skinned slave.

Sophie starts out in a high position, as the personal maid to her great-great-etc. grandmother, but events (and the spoilt teenage plantation owner’s daughter) conspire to reduce Sophie’s circumstances little by little; so that by the end of the book she’s working in the grimmest situation possible, assisting with the dangerous, backbreaking and hellish work of the sugar refining factory.

This is what timeslip novels were designed for - Edward Eager grown up: putting your protagonist through the wringer of her own ancestral past and having her come out a better person as a result. No, really a better person - a more capable, physically stronger, self-sufficient person in addition to learning some obvious lessons. One of the things that I loved about this book was the fact that Sophie changed physically as well as mentally - the changes were real, and VISIBLE. She returns from her six-month stint in 1860 taller, stronger, thinner, chestier, and a mature woman. She does not, like the Pevensie children, grow up and find herself back home a child again. What happens to her is real.

Sophie’s decompression and re-entry into modern life was one of my favorite parts of the book. She is as shell-shocked as a concentration camp survivor (I confess this is where my own current research is focused, and the parallels were IN. MY. FACE); she is prepared to flaunt racial convention in a way that could be dangerous; she is ready for the Civil Rights Movement, which is about to begin in her own time. She's also is determined to find answers to some of the unresolved threads that her precipitous departure from 1860 left hanging. Her historical-society and museum excursions uncover a couple of hilariously ironic family bugaboos which Sophie wisely keeps to herself, but which the reader will hug to his or her heart.

Another thing I loved about this book was its atmosphere - the strange presence of eerie religion, and the matter-of-fact reality of the plantation ghosts (one of which is plainly Sophie herself!) - the delicious mystery of a letter turning up from Sophie’s unwitting and pretended 1860-era “father” which seems to confirm her existence, referring to the gift of a dress for "his little girl."

I’m not doing this book justice, because it’s even more complex than I’m making it out to be - there’s Sophie’s real family, which is falling apart, and there’s the volatile civil rights situation of the 1960s to take into account (Lousiana in 1860 vs Louisiana in 1960? *WOW*), and there’s the fact that every character in the book is complex and has good points and bad points, making almost everyone sympathetic or shockingly harsh depending on what’s going on. The research behind the book is phenomenal, but I only notice it as a writer, not a reader, because the reading experience is so enjoyable and effortless.

I’ve heard a few people compare this book to Jane Yolen’s The Devil's Arithmetic , and that’s a very fair comparison in terms of structure - another book I deeply admire. But what these novels really have in common is the use of time travel as a means to deliver a crackling new perspective on difficult and sometimes appalling periods of history.

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Apr 04, 2012 Hylary Locsin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Originally posted on my blog: http://libraryladyhylary.blogspot.com ! Check it out for more reviews!

In 1960 New Orleans, thirteen-year-old Sophie Martineau is struggling to cope with her parents’ recent divorce. Her father has moved to New York City, and her former best friend is no longer allowed to socialize with the child of a single mother. To make matters worse, Sophie’s mother has decided to send her to Oak Cottage, an old plantation outside of New Orleans, to stay with her grandmother and...more Originally posted on my blog: http://libraryladyhylary.blogspot.com ! Check it out for more reviews!

In 1960 New Orleans, thirteen-year-old Sophie Martineau is struggling to cope with her parents’ recent divorce. Her father has moved to New York City, and her former best friend is no longer allowed to socialize with the child of a single mother. To make matters worse, Sophie’s mother has decided to send her to Oak Cottage, an old plantation outside of New Orleans, to stay with her grandmother and aunt for the summer. Bored and lonely, Sophie makes a wish to be someone else, and is inadvertently transported back in time to 1860. Having spent several weeks in the sun exploring the bayou of Oak Cottage, Sophie’s tanned skin causes her to be mistaken for a slave, and she is immediately put to work in Oak River House, the luxurious home of her ancestors, the Fairchilds. Sophie is used to the racial segregation in the south of 1960, but nothing prepares her for the cruelty and discrimination she experiences as a slave in a pre-Civil War plantation.

Inspired by real life slave narratives and memoirs, veteran author Delia Sherman’s The Freedom Maze proves to be a well-written and intriguing novel that is both entertaining and educational. Although the story involves time travel to the 19th century, it begins in the past, over fifty years ago, at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Sophie is a complex character, as is her mother, a recently divorced, bitter woman who warns Sophie against associating with “negroes,” especially men. As was likely the case with many children during this period of time, Sophie is unsure of exactly why she is supposed to be afraid of African Americans, but takes her mother’s word for it, trying hard to be a proper southern lady. Sherman does an excellent job of conveying Sophie’s frustration, both with her parents’ divorce and her “exile” at the Oak River plantation. The story gets even more layered, however, after Sophie travels back to 1860. The many plantation slaves become to focus of Sophie’s new life, as do the ancestors she is forced to serve after they assume she is the light-skinned offspring of a relative and his servant. The author’s description of life on the plantation, from vocabulary to daily tasks, is very well done, and gives The Freedom Maze enough historical accuracy to have a strong place in the classroom. Overall, an exceptional novel that can easily be enjoyed by tweens, teens and adults, particularly those with an interest in American history.

I am a big fan of both historical fiction and time travel, so this book was right up my alley. I thought the author did an outstanding job of describing the plantation and life as a slave in 1860. The reader is truly transported into this tumultuous period of time, something that I think would be very valuable for tween or teen readers who are learning about the Civil War or slavery. The author’s passion for this era, as well as slave narratives and memoirs, is very evident throughout the novel, and adds that much more to the already exceptional story. (less)

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Mar 11, 2012 Wendy rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Suzy

Shelves: time-travel

I really enjoyed this, and had not expected to. I didn't find the problems with a "white savior" complex that some of my literary acquaintances have. Every objection I try to bring up to myself... like, that the other slaves accepted Sophie and were awfully good to her for no real reason, when for most of the book she brings them nothing but trouble... I can find an immediate counterexample for, like all the scorn she is treated with for having no useful skills and getting special treatment beca...more I really enjoyed this, and had not expected to. I didn't find the problems with a "white savior" complex that some of my literary acquaintances have. Every objection I try to bring up to myself... like, that the other slaves accepted Sophie and were awfully good to her for no real reason, when for most of the book she brings them nothing but trouble... I can find an immediate counterexample for, like all the scorn she is treated with for having no useful skills and getting special treatment because of her skin color/presumed parentage.

That this book has the same plot and structure as The Devil's Arithmetic--that it is, in effect, The Devil's Arithmetic set on the old plantation--seems like it ought to bother me more than it does. I think that does suck some of the freshness out of this book, but overall, I don't find myself caring that much. My sister points out that there are several books similar to The Devil's Arithmetic now, but if I've read them, they haven't struck me the way this one did. It isn't derivative so much as it is formulaic, and I guess one bothers me more than the other.

I don't know this book's publishing history, and I don't mean any offense to the people at the small publisher who brought this out, but I did wish it could have benefited from the more expensive packaging and perhaps a tighter/bolder/more experienced editing hand. I wonder whether this manuscript seemed too risky for the big publishing houses, and bless the small ones for publishing books like that. Considering some of the criticisms this book has generated, if that's what happened, the big houses were probably right to be skittish. But this book--with its faults--is definitely better than quite a lot of the other books I read from 2011, all brought out by big houses.

Mostly, the book felt repetitive in places, like it could have been shorter; the conventions of the time travel needed to be either more fully sketched or more ambiguous, because what's left is just a little confusing, and I felt like I was missing something or ought to understand something I wasn't quite getting. The 1960 setting and characters bored me completely, and as with the time travel mechanism, I thought we needed either less or more of 1960. Perhaps if there was more, I would have cared about the characters and setting more. If there was less, on the other hand, I wouldn't find it so annoying.

I liked the gentle blending of adolescence-onset with time travel--something that was also explored in The Devil's Arithmetic and Charlotte Sometimes, but less explicitly.

All in all, a worthwhile read. I didn't even get into the intriguing details of the setting, the food and clothes and medicines of the slaves, all of which are given just the right amount of detail.(less)

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Jan 28, 2012 April Steenburgh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya

Sophie is a young girl who can do nothing to fill the shoes her mother has set out for her. Not that the shoes are a particularly good fit, but Sophie bows her head and takes her mother's sharp comments in silence. When her mother has to move for schooling and work, Sophie spends a summer with her aunt and grandmother on what is left of the familial plantation in Louisiana. There she meets a mysterious, magical entity that sends her back in time. But Sophie quickly learns that adventure isn't as...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Minli rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: middle-grade, historical, speculative, yay-diversity

Time-travel fantasy in which an 'aristocratic' white girl from the 1960s finds herself in the antebellum south. She travels in time, but not in space--so her tanned skin and rustic ways get her mistaken as a slave at the same house where she was visiting her grandmother.

Any book addressing or including slavery has the potential to be problematic. But while Sherman writes with honesty and sensitivity, she is not interested in the sweeping political ramifications--she's narrows her focus just on...more

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Nov 30, 2011 Tamora Pierce rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-ya-yr, historical

In 1960 Sophie's wish unexpectedly results in her trip back in time to her family's plantation in 1860. Tanned dark by the summer sun, Sophie is mistaken for one of her family's mixed-blood children and put to work as a slave, first in the moderately gentler "Big House," then as a more harshly used kitchen and field hand. This is a riveting, edge-of-the-seat story to read. Sophie finds even the supposedly easier life of waiting on the old mistress far harder than she is used to, with random blow...more

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Jun 02, 2012 Carl V. rated it 5 of 5 stars

From my review: The Freedom Maze is a captivating, brilliantly executed story about an ugly time in the history of America. Delia Sherman’s triumph is that she manages to confront and then thwart everything you have come to expect of stories that address the topic of slavery. It is a lovely story that ended all too quickly for me. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you’ve seen or read this all before. Delia Sherman’s look back on the South of the 1860′s has a freshness that is hard to des...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Adrien rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, 2012, read-on-nook

This book gives me hope for modern YA, and sadly it will not get "big" because it is not paranormal. Maybe once this paranormal craze dies down, books that are actually *good* will start being noticed again.
In 1960 Sophie is a 13 year old girl, living with her mom after her dad remarries. The summer before she turns 14 she visits her mother's family in the deep south, staying on their plantation where she quickly becomes bored. She makes a wish to have an adventure like the kids in the books she...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sherman is a terrific storyteller, with a great ear for voice, dialog and adventure, and I was captivated from the start with Sophie and her "hooraw's nest" of hair. Other reviewers have mentioned the "white savior" element of the plot, but I think Sherman successfully dodges it because her aim is bigger than making the white girl the hero; her goal is to reveal how very complicated real history can be. As the story progresses, Sophie's family connections grow more muddled, confusing the idea of...more

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May 27, 2012 Laura Cushing rated it 5 of 5 stars

In 1960 New Orleans, thirteen-year-old Sophie Martineau is set to her aunt's house in the Louisiana Bayou for the summer. Her parents are recently divorced, and her mother is dissatisfied with how Sophie isn't growing up to be a proper lady.

Sophie herself wishes for a magical adventure like she reads about in her favorite books- but what she gets is a visit from a Bre'r Rabbit type creature that takes her back in time with the help of Papa Legba. She is mistaken as a slave on her ancestor's pla...more

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May 26, 2012 Sineala rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: e-books, fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction, time-travel, young-adult

It's 1960, and thirteen-year-old Sophie is off to spend the summer with her aunt, at the family's old farmhouse that used to be a plantation back in the day. She runs around, gets a really good tan, and is generally an annoyance to the adults in her life. So, when she meets a magical creature, she wishes that she had some adventure and people who loved her. She is not very specific, so she finds herself in the same room. In 1860. Also, thanks to the tan, she is immediately recognized as a slave....more

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Dec 14, 2011 Claire rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, young-adult

A very interesting read that isn't just suitable for young adults. Sophie, who is part of a formerly rich, slave-owning Southern family, has been sent to live with her aunt and grandma in what's left of the family lands, for the summer while her recently-divorced mother studies. Sophie wants an adventure, time-travel like in her favourite books, and some local voudoun gods take her up on this. Unfortunately Sophie, who has some black ancestry in the distant past, and is a bit of a tomboy, is mis...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Sharlene rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: juvenile-fiction

This is an interesting and thought-provoking read. It made me think a lot about how people change (and don't change) in different circumstances. It makes me wonder how I might be if I had lived a different life, in another time, or with different perceptions of me. It made me reflect on The Hiding Place (in that people accustomed to one way of living are forced to live in quite another and how that changes them). It is also interesting how the character's perceptions of herself change. I'm not s...more

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Feb 09, 2012 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Something of a departure from her usual fantasy - I think this could be historical fantasy. Sophie's world has never been well put-together. Her mother is a selfish bully, her father distant, and when the book begins, Sophie's world has largely fallen apart. Her parents have divorced - not something Done by nice people in 1960 - and her mother deposits Sophie at the old family home with a grandmother who lives in the Good Old Days. Sophie doesn't and has never really ever fit into her grandmothe...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Tracey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mocknewbery, children-s

Children's middlegrade fiction; timetravel/historical fiction (from 1960s to 1860s slave-holding American South). Sophie, tanned and dirty from spending her summer days spent wallowing in the bayou near her grandmother's plantation, meets a mischievous creature and is magically transported back to her ancestors' time, where her darkened skin and distinctively familial features causes everyone to assume she is a mulatto slave--the illegitimate child of the man who would be something like Sophie's...more

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Apr 13, 2012 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really liked this tale. A young girl, Sophie Fairchild Martineau, who is visiting her aunt at the now-shabby site of the once-prominent family's plantation, meets a mysterious creature who transports her back in time to the antebellum south, where she takes on the persona of the slave love-child of one Robert Fairchild - her ancestor! The plot is neatly put together - the creature needs Sophie to fill an historic role - but the details of life on a plantation as a young slave girl are what mad...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Melanti rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical, time-travel, young-adult, 2012, library

I neglected to mention it in my review, but one of the things I liked about The Porcelain Dove was how Sherman added dealt with the subject of racism. She managed to create a heroine with period beliefs who wasn't completely abhorrent. So, I was eager to read this novel which is very much about racism as most books about time travel to the Civil War era south are.

I enjoyed it greatly, but it does have a few issues.

Sophie starts out as just "pretending" to be a slave, but she slides a bit too q...more I neglected to mention it in my review, but one of the things I liked about The Porcelain Dove was how Sherman added dealt with the subject of racism. She managed to create a heroine with period beliefs who wasn't completely abhorrent. So, I was eager to read this novel which is very much about racism as most books about time travel to the Civil War era south are.

I enjoyed it greatly, but it does have a few issues.

Sophie starts out as just "pretending" to be a slave, but she slides a bit too quickly and easily into that mindset for my tastes, with little contemplation or consciousness of that fact. Part of that is due to it being a Young Adult/Middle Grade book, and part of it is due to the fairy-tale-ish feel.

The ghost of the girl in yellow didn't quite hold up for me. (view spoiler)

I also didn't quite believe the docent at the museum. Sophia asks about the slaves, and the docent corrects her to "servant." It's probably just my perspective, coming from 50 years later, but the lack of acknowledgement from someone dedicated to history seems to be a bit too much to be believed.

I did like how Sherman managed to tie together racist attitudes from the 1860s and the 1960s - with definite softening occurring during the century but clear parallels between attitudes, and I also like how although the book does depict slavery (whippings, beatings, selling children away from their families, rape) it focuses less on the slavery itself than the racism that made it possible.

If you're wanting a heavy-hitting book on a similar topic, you might want to try Octavia Butler's Kindred instead. But for a young adult treatment of a thorny issue, The Freedom Maze is a lovely story.

(view spoiler)(less)

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May 20, 2012 Tanya Patrice rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book held me from beginning to end (the premise of time travel back to slavery reminding me of Octavia Butler's Kindred). The pace was fast, and the plot well developed. Sophie's time as a slave was the most interesting part of the book for me, and the vivid descriptions of her life and the other people on the plantation really brought it home.

But the details felt a bit contrived. The fact that Sophie conveniently got a dark tan before she traveled back in time, which was the reason she was...more

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Nov 23, 2011 Sherwood Smith added it

Shelves: fantasy, history-19th-c

Verisimilitude—authenticity—authority. Plausibility and credibility. Truth.

So much is written about the books in whose fictions we find truth so strongly that we willingly not only suspend belief, but tuck the fiction away among our own life memories.

So much has been written on how and why it happens, and here I go, adding to the flow. What makes a book real? Injecting realism is the first answer, but that wasn’t satisfactory for all. Back in 1750, Samuel Johnson ranted about how it wasn’t usefu...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Catie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Catie by: Flannery

Shelves: fantasy, historical, middle-grade, read-in-2013, ya

According to an interview with Delia Sherman at the end of this audiobook, it took eighteen years, twenty-seven drafts, countless hours of research, and a whole bunch of informed beta readers to complete this book – and it shows. If you’re looking for historical fiction that’s been thoroughly researched and very well done, this is an excellent choice. And the best part is that this was written for children.

I know that I’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating: children deserve great...more According to an interview with Delia Sherman at the end of this audiobook, it took eighteen years, twenty-seven drafts, countless hours of research, and a whole bunch of informed beta readers to complete this book – and it shows. If you’re looking for historical fiction that’s been thoroughly researched and very well done, this is an excellent choice. And the best part is that this was written for children.

I know that I’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating: children deserve great books too. I think sometimes writers approach the children’s or young adult genre with the attitude of, “Oh, they’re just kid’s books…” as if somehow being young means being able to see past flat characters, gaping plot holes, and overly simplistic stories. Anyone who has any dealings with the young can tell you that this is categorically untrue. My kids can easily differentiate between a good book and a bad book (or worse, a condescending book). So it really impresses me when an author has clearly gone the extra mile (and then some) for children.

At the beginning of this book, Sophie is a very late-blooming thirteen years old. It’s 1960, and much to her traditional grandmother’s disapproval, her parents are getting a divorce and her mother has decided to go back to school. Sophie’s mother struggles to fit between her very traditional upbringing and what she’s had to do (and worse…enjoyed doing) to survive. She’s strict and overly critical of just about everything – especially Sophie. Sophie’s father has disappeared to New York to live a new life that doesn’t include anything about his old one. When Sophie’s mother foists her off on her grandmother and aunt to spend the summer holidays at the family’s ancestral home, Sophie wishes for an escape. She wishes to go on a marvelous, grand adventure just like her favorite fantasy stories. She wishes to finally have a close family and friends. Things get interesting when a very tricky spirit decides to grant her wish – by sending Sophie back into the past, where her ancestral family takes one look at her and assumes she’s a slave.

Delia Sherman impressed me greatly by going the extra mile in researching this book, but she impressed me even more by presenting such a dark, difficult subject (human slavery) so honestly. I know that it can be difficult to navigate these topics with children, but I think it becomes even more important not to resort to oversimplification when relating the uglier aspects of our history to them. Delia Sherman is one of the few authors I know about who does it perfectly. She doesn’t sanitize slavery at all. She also doesn’t sensationalize the (already horrifying on its own) cruel treatment that most slaves received. Nor does she pretend that these cruelties didn’t exist. Instead, she relates the details of slavery in layers: the kids might only pick up on the surface ideas (which are still related with stark honesty), but the adults will be able to see much more. In fact, to an adult who is perhaps already seeing beneath those surface layers, Sophie’s initial perspective might feel a bit too simplistic. However, through the course of this story, Sophie gains a huge amount of perspective. Through Sophie’s eyes, we get to experience her initial ignorance about slavery give way slowly, by degrees – a changing perspective which will (I think) encourage child readers to follow in her footsteps down through the surface layers and into the deeper, darker themes.

Sophie's changing perspective even encouraged me to think about slavery in ways that I'd never fully considered. For example, I initially had some trouble buying into the idea that Sophie’s family could mistake a Caucasian girl (with a tan) for a slave. Once I began to enjoy the story, I mostly just decided to let my skepticism about Sophie’s appearance go – I mean, this is a middle grade fantasy after all, and a little suspension of disbelief is pretty much par for the course. Or so I thought. At the end of this audiobook, Delia Sherman reveals that part of her inspiration for this story was an advertisement she found in a historical archive for a runaway slave – a girl who “had blonde hair and blue eyes” and “could pass for white.” It’s not like I didn’t know that Thomas Jefferson had (and still has) African American descendants, or that the word “quadroon” used to be a thing. I guess I just never gave a ton of thought to how complicated that must have been - living in a system where parents, children, and grandchildren were sometimes separated by this arbitrary line that labeled one human and one animal. Were the American plantation owners really so blind to the fact that these people – who were living side by side with them, raising them as children, and maybe even related to them genetically – were actually people? Delia Sherman doesn’t shy away from investigating these questions either and the resulting view of a system that has blinded so many for so long is utterly compelling. This is a fantastic audiobook that I recommend for children and the adults in their lives. I think this would be an excellent introduction to American slavery for any middle school classroom.

Perfect Musical Pairing

Aretha Franklin - A Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke cover)

This was a hard one to choose because there are so many themes in this book that I wanted to cover in the space of one song. Luckily for me, Aretha Franklin is the Queen and she does provide. Who else could weigh one song down so heavily with all the strife and hardship of a century’s worth of civil rights battles? I mean, I do love the original of this song but Aretha really just BRINGS THE EMOTION. When she says “it’s been long and it’s been an uphill journey all the way” you can really feel all of those years (and the years still to come). And of course she brings a huge dose of woman power to this song, which I think also pairs up with this book so well. Yes, this book is about civil rights but it’s mostly about one girl finding her own strength.

Also seen at The Readventurer (less)

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Apr 11, 2012 Res rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sff

The one where a white girl named Sophie wishes for an adventure, and a trickster figure sends her back to the 1860s, where she's immediately assumed to be one of the slaves.

I really enjoyed this. Sophie starts out as a rather childish girl who's desperate for approval that her mother won't give her, and she really has a struggle when she's thrown into a situation for which she has no skills at all. Some of the owners are kind and others are cruel, and I enjoyed the way it really didn't matter v...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Kathy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-march-2012

I really liked this one. It started a little slowly, but the time travel was VERY well done, and things that were taken for granted in the nineteen sixties are seen in a totally different light in the eighteen sixties. Sophie does not have an easy time of things in either time period, but learns from her experiences and is likely to work our a better life for herself because of her exposure to unexpected realities. Well described and grounded. You could feel the sticky plastic car seats in the 1...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Kell Andrews rated it 5 of 5 stars

An amazing, brilliant fantasy about adolecence, racial identity, perception, family, and heredity. A white New Orleans girl in the 1960s longs to revist to her family's illustrious plantation past. She encounters the legendary creature Compair Lapin, Brer Rebbit, who takss her to the past, where she is shocked to find that she is assumed to be a slave, owned by her own ancestors. Sherman's storytelling has at once a classic feel and a very modern, unsparing interpretation. I couldn't guess where...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Steph Su rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: e-book

THE FREEDOM MAZE is an odd and intriguing book, blending two historical periods with mystical elements. At its core, though, this is a traditional coming-of-age story—which actually makes it hard for me to decide how I feel about this book.

In middle school, I read a book called The Devil s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, which tells the story of a modern girl who gets thrown back in time to WWII Europe. THE FREEDOM MAZE follows the same storypath. It is clear that Sherman has meticulously done her res...more THE FREEDOM MAZE is an odd and intriguing book, blending two historical periods with mystical elements. At its core, though, this is a traditional coming-of-age story—which actually makes it hard for me to decide how I feel about this book.

In middle school, I read a book called The Devil s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, which tells the story of a modern girl who gets thrown back in time to WWII Europe. THE FREEDOM MAZE follows the same storypath. It is clear that Sherman has meticulously done her research on both time periods: the dialogue feels authentic, social beliefs ingrained, and details regarding setting extraordinary. It’s hard enough accurately depicting one historical period; Delia Sherman has to make everyone look like underachievers by doing so for two!

All of that is the backdrop, however, for the classic bildungsroman structure of this story. THE FREEDOM MAZE involves slavery and racism and Southern culture, but it’s not interested in that so much as it is in Sophie’s development from a petulant child to a more independent teenager. And that’s where my potential love for this book trips up. Sophie is sympathetic at the beginning of the novel, when she is ordered this way and that by her “Southern belle” mother and grandmother, but when half the book passes and Sophie is still petulant and incompetent, my sympathy for her waned a bit. Of course, it wouldn’t be a bildungsroman if Sophie didn’t eventually learn, but it was a bit of a struggle for me in the middle to continue to be invested in the well-being of a timid and fretful girl. Think Mary from The Secret Garden, thrust into the pre-Civil War American South.

THE FREEDOM MAZE is not a book for those who like their plots and pacing action-packed and always-running. I put the book down several times out of repetitiveness and Sophie’s stagnancy before I began to be invested. And while I’m glad to have finished it, half of a book with a slow plot and fretful main character is still too much for me to like it fully. THE FREEDOM MAZE will be best for patient readers who like their readings challenging, well-researched, and with just a dash of the fantastical.(less)

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Nov 18, 2012 Susan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-group, slatebreaker, ya

I picked up this book at the recommendation of the Slatebreakers blog ( http://wp.me/p1DtDT-oH ). I agree with their review in that the time travel in which there is no magic fix for every problem and in which real change occurs in a character is quite compelling. I loved the beginning and end, the 1960s parts. A nice portrait of some conflicted family relationships. Bu I am troubled by the perspective here: a book about slavery and racism in the 60s all told from the point of view of a white gi...more

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Sep 10, 2012 Angelhorn rated it 4 of 5 stars

While this isn’t a classic from my youth it might as well be. The cover even makes it look like a vintage book, and the premise – a 1960s girl pulled back in time to the 1860s – gives it a setting similar to many of the books I read when I was a middle grader.

But this book has a contemporary edge to it, and this comes from the very clever and subtle rhetoric about race, identity and privilege.

Sophie a “white” thirteen year-old wishes for adventure and is whisked back 100 years to the same Louisi...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Jasmine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, childrens

Just started this book, am already falling in love.

...And I loved it completely afterward. This book is set in 1960 and 1860, about a white girl named Sophie who is forced to stay on her mom's family's old plantation for the summer instead of at home in New Orleans. One little wish transports Sophie back to the plantation in 1860, when it's a very different kind of place. This book was so well done -- the characters were so fully formed, especially Sophie, the pacing was great, and I felt fully...more

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