“I’m free, I’m free, I’m free…” Ann Maria Weems’s heart pounded the resounding rhythm again and again. Based on this young girl’s account of her life and her dramatic journey from a life of slavery to freedom, Elisa Carbone wrote a historical novel which is titled “Stealing Freedom.” After the book was published by Dell Yearling in New York, in 1998, it was later nominated an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Joan G. Sugarman Children’s Book Award Winner. Carbone vividly portrays what a life in slavery felt like as a young girl living in the mid 1800s. She writes with honest realism. Disguising as a coach boy by the name of Joseph Wright, Ann is shown on p. iii in a black and white photograph, taken shortly before she crossed the border to free land. Naturally because of her disguise, she’s dressed in a suit and tie and a black cap, with her hair cut short. While Ann’s face seems unreadable, within her eyes holds a look of determination, bravery, and courage that deeply displays her character.

Ann Maria Weems, who was born a slave on the Prices’ farm in Rockville, Maryland, lived and worked with her family, which included her three brothers, Augustus, Addison, and Joseph, her sister Catharine, and her Mamma and Papa. Despite the fact that she always lacked food, enough time to sleep, and proper clothing, she treasured what she believed the most important thing, her family, because that brought their lives together. She relished family time together. Regularly, day in and day out, Ann worked with her mother and her sister in the cooking house, cooking meals for her owner’s household. Toiling as faithfully as a servant in hope to someday buy all of the Weems family’s freedom, her father, a freedman, labored day and night. But before Ann’s father saved enough, Mr. Price, their owner, started tearing the family’s precious lives apart by separating them. When he did, this riveted the Weems’s mission to reunite their family together. Ann’s father later resolved, “If Master Charles won’t let this family be joined together in slavery, then we’ll join it back in freedom.”

After Ann's three brothers were sold off to the south, some abolitionists, who were opposed to slavery, wanted to help slaves flee to freedom. Hoping to purchase the remainder of the family for a decent price, because then the Weems would become his property for a few weeks, a man named Mr. Bigelow planned to help the Weems by drawing up manumission papers which proved they were free people. Mr. Price agreed to sell her Mamma, Papa, and Catharine, but refused to sell Ann. He also refused to let Ann’s parents visit once they left. Sadly Ann, who was separated from her family at only about twelve years old, fell into a deep depression. At their last goodbye her heart bore a wound so deep that she felt it would never heal. She was abandoned. She cried miserably each night, “Oh why, Lord, was I born a slave? Why does Master Charles want to keep me? Oh why do my parents and sister have freedom and I am still in bondage?” Only when she opened herself to her fellow slave community, did she start to slowly emerge from her despair. When she had just started to rebuild her life, freedom reached out to her in a rather shocking and unexpected way.

In the middle of the night, sleeping stiffly in a corner of the kitchen, Ann awoke with a start. She heard the floorboards creaking. She figured her young mistress was approaching, in need of something because her mistress had made a frequent habit of drawing towards her in the darkness of night. Then all of a sudden, a hand seized her mouth shut just as she was yelping in fright, surprise, and shock. “Shut up! Or else!” a harsh whisper commanded her. Ann didn’t know what to do but to obey. The man threw Ann in a carriage, banging her head, and tossed a thick blanket over her. As the carriage rolled along for hours, Ann was tossed around, feeling every little bump on the road. Stopping abruptly, Ann wondered where they had stopped. The man let her out, and walked her to the door of the house. Surprisingly, the man who opened it, Mr. Bigelow, welcomed her with a smile. “What! I had enough reason to believe I was kidnapped, and here I am at Mr. Bigelow’s house, who unmistakably helped my family!” Ann gaped in utmost surprise. Mr. Bigelow embraced her, fed her, and told her that she had boarded the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves flee to Canada in secret. She boarded, and started the perilous journey to freedom. “Oh freedom, oh freedom… halleluiah, I’m reaching freedom, freedom…”

The second half of “Stealing Freedom,” which tells how she was hidden and handed to each station in the Railroad, recounts her actual road to freedom, and how she finally reached her destination. Although the author created some of the dialogue and compressed some incidents of Ann's early life, she states in the afterword that the events were written purposefully to be accurate to Ann’s life, and each character in her book is a real person. Obviously, Ann's journey to freedom concluded harrowing and tedious as she was "delivered" from hand to hand and hidden for long periods. Oh, the suffering she probably felt! She had to bear separation from her family, bear the tortures of being a slave, and bear the perils of fleeing to freedom. As well as capturing the feelings of the slaves, this book excellently depicts the attitudes of the whites. Within the story holds a strong sense of purpose and just enough suspense and adventure because you know Ann will reach her destination, but the close calls along the way are so breathtaking that it holds the interest of readers of all ages. Telling the story simply and vividly, Elisa Carbone writes with strong language, not talking down to her young readers at all, but writing her words with boldness and adventure. Elisa Carbone has woven together a tapestry of words, action, and suspense into this overwhelmingly heartwarming story of young Ann Maria Weems’s journey from bondage to freedom.