Elijah of Buxton

The story is based on a real place in Canada where blacks had escaped to and settled. It was beyond the reach of the slave traders and those men who captured escaped slaves.

The main character is a Elijah, eleven years old, who has an ability at throwing stones and killing fish. Another character is a preacher, and the third main character is Leroy, a man who wants to save up enough money to get his family out of slavery in America.

The back of the book talks about how Elijah tracks down the thief.

Therein lies one of the problems with the book.

The description makes it seem like most of the book deals with whatever it is that Elijah has to do but that's not correct. In fact, it's some 220 pages into the book before the first reference is made to what is developing, and it takes more pages after that to build up to Elijah having to go to America.

In addition, there is no mystery to the book at all. The person who stole the money is obvious from the very beginning; the only thing the reader can wonder is if Elijah will catch up to him, and if he can get the money back.

Although the book deals with a serious subject, it actually ends up being more boring than anything else. I was even tempted to just stop reading the book and move on to something else.

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