Escape Across the Wide Sea

Forced to flee France, young Daniel's Huguenot family finds itself on the Lily, a ship transporting cargo to Africa. Daniel is shocked to find that in Africa, the cargo they've been carrying is replaced by live cargo - captured slaves. He is faced with the horrific truth of slavery and the brutal conditions in which these slaves are transported. He befriends one of the captured girls, and their friendship continues throughout the story. Though fictionalized, this story includes real details about the slave trade and the founding of the New Rochelle communty in the colony of New York. Readers will gain an understanding of the hardships of life in colonial America, the difficulties of language barriers that immigrants faced, and the the moral complexities of slavery. This book would be a good addition to a classroom study or homeschool unit on colonial America. Kris Bordessa, author of Great Colonial America Projects You Can Build Yourself

Katherine Kirkpatrick is an increasingly beloved author of children's historical fiction. Having published the widely read Trouble's Daughter and other books, she now tells a story based on history of the escape from France in 1686 of a Huguenot or French Protestant weaver's family, persecuted for their religion. The King's soldiers destroy the father's loom in a heartbreaking scene; then trying to escape, the weaver and his wife conceal their son, ten-year-old Daniel Bonnet, in one of the donkey's side packets, or panniers. A soldier, testing to see if any small child is hidden there, drives his bayonet through the leather and into the boy's leg. During the several month's sea voyage in escaping France, Daniel deals with the pain of the leg wound which slowly cripples him but comes face to face with a greater pain: the ship which takes them proves to be a slave ship. He is horrified at the cargo they carry and his desire to rescue and make life better for a tiny captive slave girl makes him understand troubles greater than his useless leg. How they all manage to reach New York and religious freedom and how he matures as a young man through his compassion is the story of the book...and how finally, how he somehow returns himself and his father to weaving and makes a better life for the little girl. As with all of Katherine Kirkpatrick's books, this one brings a world long gone to vivid life. Slaves ships, weavers' rooms, sugar plantations, and one brave boy who grows up on his voyage to freedom and the new world.