Harriet Tubman: A Woman of Courage (Time For Kids Biographies Series) by Editors Of Time For Kids, Renee Skelton (With)

From the Publisher

As a teenage slave, Harriet Tubman stood up to an overseer who was trying to harm another slave. From that time forward, Tubman (above left) fought against unfairness and for what she believed was right. She helped hundreds of African Americans escape on the Underground Railroad.

TIME For Kids® Biographies help make a connection between the lives of past heroes and the events of today. Harriet Tubman's courage and ideals have inspired generations of Americans to fight for equal rights and to stand up for their convictions.

Susan Hepler, Ph.D. - Children's Literature

This title in the "TIME for Kids Biography" series uses archival photographs and a lively text to tell the story of Harriet Tubman and her work in leading over three hundred slaves to freedom. The Underground Railway is explained, along with descriptions of routes, hiding places, and ways slaves told each other about when and how to go through quilt patterns. The inviting format is further enhanced by paintings by illustrators such as Katherine Krull and Janet Huse. The essential facts and influences on American history by Tubman are covered in interesting prose accessible to the average reader. The text is echoed in the inviting format: well-captioned pictures, occasional sidebars, and an interview with Martin Luther King's older sister, Christine King Farris giving the reader one person's childhood recollections of hearing of Harriet Tubman and her opinions as to Tubman's legacy. A short timeline is included. 2005, HarperCollins, Ages 7 to 11.

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Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

A Woman of Courage

Harriet Tubman was born a slave. But she made up her mind that she would not die a slave. With courage and determination, Tubman bravely won her own freedom -- and the freedom of hundreds of other slaves.

When she died at the age of ninety-three, Harriet Tubman was a famous and respected American. The former slave risked her life many times to help other people become free. She also served her country during the Civil War as a spy and a scout. In her later years she opened her home to people in need -- asking nothing for herself in return.

No one knows exactly when Harriet was born. It was probably around 1820 in Bucktown, Maryland. Slave traders had captured Harriet's grandparents in West Africa. Her parents, Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross, were born as slaves. So when Harriet and her brothers and sisters were born, they were slaves, too. Her parents named her Araminta. But people called her by her mother's name, Harriet.

A Hard Life

Harriet, her parents, and her ten brothers and sisters lived and worked on the Brodess plantation near Bucktown. A plantation was a large farm where slaves did all the work. Because Harriet was a slave, her childhood was much more work than play. She started to work when she was just five years old. She was hired out to a nearby plantation to care for the owner's baby. When she was six, she learned to weave and make clothes. As a young teen, she labored in the fields of corn, potatoes, and tobacco. Harriet was strong. She was very good at her jobs. But Harriet was also independent and rebellious in nature. This made her owners very angry. They would punish her with beatings.