Elijah Of Buxton Summary

The historical fiction book, Elijah of Buxton, was written by Christopher Paul Curtis. The main character of the story is an eleven-year-old boy named Elijah. He was the first child to be born free in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves, he lives there with his Ma and Pa. People in the settlement, mostly his Ma, consider Elijah to be a fragile boy since he gets scared easily especially by snakes. A second character in this book is Preacher, he is a very dishonest person and has lied to Elijah on many occasions, he is a white man so he doesn’t live on the settlement. Another character is Cooter, who is Elijah’s best friend, he is usually in trouble, but he is always there for Elijah when he needs him. Mr. Leroy is a hard working man that lives in the settlement. He helps Mrs. Holton, who also lives in Buxton, with clearing her property and she pays him for his work so he can eventually buy his wife and children out of slavery. Mrs. Chloe isn’t in the book until the last chapter, but is still an important character. Elijah meets

Once the story got going it grabbed my attention and I wanted to keep reading to find out what would happen next. I also liked the message of the book that shows the reader how bad being a slave was and how fortunate we are not to be slaves. I enjoyed reading Elijah of Buxton, but there are still some things I didn’t like about the book. I didn’t like that the book has a very slow beginning. Also, sometimes it was a little hard to read the book because of how everyone talked with slang.

I would recommend this book to people who disagrees with slavery, but likes to read about the history of people being slaves. It would be a good book for people who don’t live in diverse area, for example a high white population, to give them a better understanding of the history of American slavery. It is a great book for anyone to learn about what people went through during