History Smashers: The Underground Railroad Paperback – May 17, 2022

My 5th grader can’t get enough of these books and I love that he’s learning history too! Such. Fun series.

I've very much enjoyed the History Smashers series by Messner with its focus on the facts that have been left out of history textbooks for many young (and older) readers. Underground Railroad is no exception. It begins before enslavement, and focuses on the many people who helped beyond Harriet Tubman. The book humanizes the experience of freedom seeking, showing how the people who helped the enslaved to freedom (many of whom were former enslaved people themselves) put their lives at great risk to do so. These books should be in every classroom.

Kate Messner is an expert an communicating complex ideas and history in a thoughtful, accessible manner, and this winner, with Gwendolyn Hooks, is no exception. This myth-busting volume in the series weaves an engaging, fact-based narrative that encourages readers to reflect on U.S. history and make their own connections to its impact on today's world. i think readers of all ages will learn something new! An essential addition to school and library shelves--really to bookshelves everywhere.

This series is outstanding, and the installment on the Underground Railroad is particularly interesting and compelling in a time when book banning and reluctance to teach accurate, nuanced history is spiking. Kids will devour this.

I was excited to see a history series for children that was interesting and that would make them eager to learn history. However..... although there were new facts presented, the authors also took it upon themselves to add personal opinions about such facts. They cast doubt on the motives of white individuals in the battle against slavery, and that the white individuals just wanted personal recognition of their actions. They also present the error that when the government determined a slave would only count as 2/3 person in regards to how many representatives a state would get, it was because of the value they had as a person and not as a ploy for the North to limit the power the South had to perpetuate slavery. There is also a factual error in a date on page 100, which makes me concerned that there are other uncaught errors in this book. Several of the recommended books and articles in the bibliography are about Critical Race Theory. Overall, I was greatly disappointed in this book, and it makes me concerned about the remaining books in this series.

Great book providing a rounded history of the underground railroad. It’s keeping my kids attention.