Amos Fortune, Elizabeth Yates
Amos Fortune, Elizabeth Yates
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Amos Fortune
Free Man

Author: Elizabeth Yates

Narrator: Ray Childs

Unabridged: 3 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/23/2012


Synopsis

The Newbery Award winner, based on a true story! Captured by slave traders when only fifteen, At-mun never forgot his roots as a prince. Nor did he ever lose his princely dignity and the courage to hold his head high. Sold at auction in America and haunted by the memory of his young sister left behind in Africa, At-mun, now Amos, began his long march to freedom. He dreamed of being free and of buying the freedom of his closest friends. By the time he was sixty years old, Amos Fortune began to see those dreams come true. "It does a man no good to be free until he learns how to live," he often said, and he left a legacy of freedom for himself and others that has immortalized his touching story for us all.

About Elizabeth Yates

Elizabeth Yates (1905-2001), prolific American author, won the 1951 Newbery Medal for her novel Amos Fortune, Free Man. She also received a Newbery Honor in 1944 for Mountain Born.

About Ray Childs

Ray Childs is a successful audiobook narrator. He can be heard on such titles as Black like Me, The Vanderbilts, and Amos Fortune.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Emily on December 06, 2015

"Hate could do that to a man, Amos thought, consume him and leave him smoldering. But he was a free man, and free at a great cost, and he would not put himself in bondage again." Here is a story not to be missed, of a young teenage boy in Africa, son of a chief and tribal leader, who is kidnapped by......more

Goodreads review by Wendy on September 06, 2016

I did my best to rate this what I might have rated it as a child, or maybe if I'd read it back when it was written. As a book, I would probably rate it highly in a list of similar children's biographies for interest and readability. Amos Fortune had a very interesting life, and a new biography of him......more

Goodreads review by Josiah on November 16, 2023

This is an exceptional juvenile biography, told as a historical fiction narrative. Elizabeth Yates is a sympathetic and caring author, and brings these qualities to the sad yet inspiring story of Amos Fortune, an African prince sold into slavery at age fifteen who spent the next forty-five years wor......more

Goodreads review by Ann on November 28, 2012

I had grave misgivings before I began reading this book. It won the Newbery Award, yes, but it won in 1951, and it's a book about a black man written by a white woman. In 1950. That's enough to give me a bit of a pause entering into the reading experience. On the whole, the book was not as racially i......more

Goodreads review by Kellyn on August 24, 2017

Read with mother and younger siblings for school (and a couple years before that, also for school). I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. I found some of Amos's ideas a little silly - such as finding his sister, whom he assumed would be the same age as she had been when he last saw her no matter ho......more


Quotes

“The moving story of a life dedicated to the fight for freedom.” Booklist

“Ray Childs' deep, melodious voice breathes life into a man who maintained his princely dignity through the indignities of slavery.”  AudioFile