Fight for Freedom

by Stan Mack, Susan Champlin

Bringing history into an engaging and kid-friendly graphic novel format, the Cartoon Chronicles series returns with a look at the Civil War. As the fighting comes closer to a Virginia plantation, a young slave named Sam escapes to search for his father, who's been conscripted into the Confederate army. Meanwhile, Sam's friend Annabelle, the plantation owner's daughter, must help run the plantation when her father dies. And that's no easy matter when soldiers from both armies want to use the plantation for their own purposes! Contains a prologue and an epilogue that separates fact from fiction.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Childrens, Historical

128 pages, Hardcover

First published July 17, 2012

About the author

Stanley 'Stan' Mack (B.A., Illustration, Rhode Island School of Design, 1958) is a cartoonist and illustrator best known for his pioneering observational style. Stan Mack's Real Life Funnies ran as a comic strip in The Village Voice for more than 20 years, and his work also has appeared in Esquire, New York magazine, and Natural History, among others. He perviously served as art director of The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, and the New York Times Book Review, successively. After leaving the Voice, his Adweek comic strip, Stan Mack’s Outtakes ran for a decade.

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't my favorite book. I found it hard to follow along while I was reading the speech bubbles. This may be a good read to someone that enjoys reading comic books. I think this book did give the reader a clearer reason for the Civil War though. The facts and fiction epilogue helped clarify the events within the book.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fight For Freedom is about a slave boy named Sam who wants to be free and wants to help all slaves be free. It all started when Annabelle, the daughter of the slave master and mistress was reading a shakespeare book and she told Sam to put the book away for her but he didn’t, instead he tucked the book in his waistband. When he ran outside to give Annabelle her umbrella the book fell and Sam almost got beat because his master thought he was reading but he wasn’t. The next day a slave hunter came to twin oaks with a preacher tied up as a slave prisoner, but when Sam was giving the preacher water, the preacher told sam that he is not a slave and that he will never see his home again, so Sam went to the kitchen and got a knife to cut the rope. When Sam was done the man ran away and the slave hunter started to look for the man, but Twist the overseer said that Sam let the man free, so Twist brought out the whip to beat Sam, but Sam’s father took the blame and got beat. When the slave master went on war he died, and Sam found out about the Emancipation Proclamation, so he told his mom and his mom told him to “go.” When he got to washington city he met a newspaper reporter who asked him if he could teach other free slaves how to read, and when the news went around these white men got mad at the fact that black people are in their country, so they went to Sam’s classroom and started ripping up books. The ex-slaves and the white men started fighting but the black men won and the white men left the classroom, then Sam continued teaching. January 10, 1863, Sam got to meet President Lincoln and they made a plan. The plan was for Sam to get hired as a civilian guide with Captain K.O. Kelly, and free other slaves, so they freed some slaves and Sam ran back to the Southside with his father to go get his mom, but when they were on their way back a slave hunter stopped them and made them prisoners. But Annabelle came and saved them. Then they went back to Twin Oaks and decided to remain slaves, but get paid. Abraham Lincoln ended slavery and the slaves were free.




This was a good book, it gave great information about slavery, and the illustration was pretty simple. I would recommend this book to people that love history.

[Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read "Fight for Freedom" by Susan Champlin and Stan Mack, and it’s about a young boy named Sam who is working as a slave on a farm. But one day, the farm owner's daughter named Annabelle shows sympathy for him and helps him escape from the farm. Sam sets out on a journey to try and fight for equality for black people, when he meets an older black person who isn’t a slave. Sam is caught and is put in some bad situations many times but he eventually finds a way to get through them, with the help of his friends, like Annabelle and the older black man. I liked this book because it has a great meaning. It shows that even if you are a minority and being treated poorly, you should fight for your own freedom and never give up. I also liked how Annabelle helps Sam throughout the story. Even though Annabelle’s parents are keeping Sam as a slave, Annabelle ignores them and does whatever she can to help Sam. She even steals a gun for him...

This story has a lot of action and some really intense scenes that make you wonder what’s going to happen next. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a slave. It must’ve been really scary for Sam to be out in the open world, knowing that if he’s caught as a slave he will be taken back to a camp. Or, he might even be killed. Imagine having to constantly be hiding from white people, and how scary that would be. Overall this was a pretty okay book. It was about the Civil War, and the American Revolution. It focused mainly on the racial topics upon the main character, Sam. I liked the story, but it was pretty boring for a lot of the time. Historical fiction isn't really my type of book, but if you're into that then you should give this a try. It did have a very engaging story line. It was super intense and full of excitement and I hope you’ll give this book a try if you ever need a book to read one day. I think if the title of this book sounds interesting enough to you, then you should go ahead and read it and you'll probably like it.

[Elisabeth Petty]

Historical fiction graphic novel that will help kids/teens learn more about the Civil War. It's an easy enough read but hars because of what many had to suffer through- worth the read.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few weeks ago when my coworkers and I were working on iBrowse in a department meeting, we were talking about a nonfiction graphic novel about the Oregon Trail -- and this book's cover popped up in my head. I still haven't found (or remembered the title of) the Oregon Trail graphic novel I was thinking this book was... but I know it's somewhere in our collection. (And no. It's not with the Oregon Trail books. I think we ended up putting it in fiction.) Anyway, this was a good, fast-paced historical graphic novel.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the Civil War, near the frontlines, and everything about life on a southern plantation has been thrown into chaos. The slaves aren’t free, but they aren't really slaves either. Proper southern women can no longer be proper southern women. You can’t tell "us" from "them" because nobody knows who we are and who they are. Two children, one white and one black, who grew up together in the old world will have to find a way to make it in a whole new world in this comic book story.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't want to like this, but I did. I like the idea of graphic novels teaching about historical events a LOT - even as an adult I found myself nodding and being surprised by new facts that I never knew. That being said, some of it is WAY confusing for even upper elementary kids. The whole introduction was extremely wordy and it might lose kids within the first few pages. I like the idea better than the book, but it was good.

[Ms. Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story starts off slow, but picks up after a couple of chapters. Frankly, it's a bit crazy that anyone would find the story plausible. I did like how the author notes at the end what was fiction in the story. The illusrations are standard fare. I honestly didn't find anything in them worth noting. C- rating.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Graphic novel historical fiction set during the Civil War and told from the perspective of an escaped slave who ends up joining the Union army. The point-of-view is interesting and no punches are pulled in depicting the brutalities of slavery but the story has too many implausibilities. An epilogue explains what's fact and what's fiction. Something to offer to reluctant readers.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

My fourth grade daughter found this at our library because it was in the graphic novels section. My second grade daughter just had me read the whole thing in one sitting. It was a good stepping stone to talk about civil rights and racial differences. The visual layout works very well for my daughter, and we talked about reading another book by the same author about the American Revolution.

[P. · Rating 1 out of 5]

tells the history of the civil war through people who own/work at one plantation in the south. good supplement for elementary students/whenever kids first learn about the civil war

[ReadingWench · Rating 3 out of 5]

A historical fiction graphic novel.

An epilogue in the back of the book explains what it true and what is fiction.

AR: unknown

[Jackson]

The book is about a slave named Sam. He can read very well. His favorite book is Shakespeare. He got caught with a book that Annabelle gave him to read. So Mr Twist grabbed him and left him a warning thinking he couldn't read a book. His brother Joseph warned him about reading. Sam was sent to get a slave water and the slave turned out to be a preacher so he grabbed a knife and untied the preacher. Mr Twist was furiated with Sam and was going to put Sam under the whip. But Joseph took the blame and got whipped instead. Sam was very upset. They took his father away he was angry. Annabelles father had died. A heroic death said by an official. A prisoner said that Sam was technically free but Sam had heard nothing about it. Sam ran away all the way to Washington city. And he met a man named Ezekiel Joshua Jefferson. He forgot a line from Shakespeare's book and Sam knew what it was and told him. Ezekiel was impressed. So he wanted to make Sam a teacher. Sam was a great teacher.




I think the book was really good and it gave some good details about slavery. It showed how African Americans were mistreated and abused verbally and physically. It was a very well written book. Sam was a very nice boy in the book he fought hard to try and find his father. He was a very smart boy and it taught me how no matter what background you're from you can help everyone.