Fleeing for Freedom: Stories of the Underground Railroad Book

The introduction was painful to read. Seriously. An almost quote from one of the paragraphs: "They hung out in abolitionist circles. They read abolitionist newspapers. Abolitionism was very important to them." Wow. Could you insult my intelligence as a reader again, please?

The introduction is good, though, as a brief sum-up of Levi Coffin and William Still's lives. The stories later on, though, stand on their own, so you can skip the intro if you'd like (and I think you'd like).

The one real thing I gained from the intro is the fact that Rev. John Rankin's writings were boring. I read Beyond the River (which they praise in Fleeing for Freedom) and loved it. So I just assumed that Rankin's writings would be as interesting as Beyond the River was. But apparently not. And that was an interesting tidbit.

Levi's writings were fun and engaging. Fascinating stories and fascinating history.

William Still, however, didn't capture my imagination the same way. I disliked his writing style and actually didn't even finish his section. So all 3 of those stars are for Levi Coffin. In fact, I'd give his section 5 stars, and the other 2 sections (intro and Still's) drag the whole book down to 3 stars overall.

I might check out Levi Coffin's Reminiscences. It is over 700 pages long, though. Guess I better pull out my die-hard UGRR fanaticism for that one.