#21- John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

Written by Jason Glaser

Illustrated by Al Milgrom, Bill Anderson, and Charles Barnett III

Capstone Press, 2006

32 Pages

Historical Fiction

     This is a graphic novel depicting the events of a not so well known event that helped fuel the Civil War. The story is of John Brown, an abolitionist, who would do anything to end slavery. John Brown grew up in an abolitionist family and was a part of many orginazations that helped slaves. John Brown went as far as to kill some men that he knew wanted slavery to remain legal, but he was never caught. John moved and grew a beard. He began to devise a plan to take over Harpers Ferry, a military outpost. He figured that he could get weapons for slaves and they would be able to fight for their freedom. After much planning and less support than imagined, Brown led the raid on Harpers Ferry. After only 36 hours the raid was stopped and Brown was imprisoned and hanged. One year after Brown's death the Civil War began.

      Milgrom, Anderson, and Barnett used acrylics to create the illustrations. The book is put together in a graphic novel format. There are lots of action pictures and most of the pages contain several panels. The illustrators used lots of color to help make the story seem real. The illustrations really make the reader feel like they are living this historic event.

     I think this would be a great book to have in a classroom library. This is part of a library called the Graphic Library. I think it would be great to have as many books from this graphic novel library as possible. I think that it would be better for children in fifth grade and up. These books are great to help students really get into the history stories. Some of the stories that are in the Graphic Library are stories that usually don't get covered in the history curriculum. I think it would be a great way for students to learn more about the lesser known, but still significant, historical events in American History. When teaching a certain time period, the teacher could have the Graphic Library books that go along with that time period on display in the classroom library and the students could be encouraged to read them on their own.