Amos Fortune
Free Man

"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

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

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

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

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