Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton
Winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Award and others, Poet is the story of an enslaved man, George Moses Horton, who labored on a farm in the Chapel Hill area of North Carolina during the 1800s. What makes this a most remarkable story is that George Horton taught himself how to read during a time when African-American slaves were forbidden to learn that skill. George loved poetry above all else and began to compose his own poems. Not knowing how to write, he memorized each poem.
On Sundays George walked the eight miles to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he sold fruit and vegetables from the farm. While there, he would often recite his poems. Students soon paid George to compose poems for them. He saved the money, but the master of the farm refused to allow George to buy his freedom. Disheartened, George was befriended by a professor’s wife who taught him how to write. George then submitted several of his poems to a newspaper up North. The poems protested his enslavement. As time went on George wrote books and finally achieved his freedom when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery in America.
This picture book is a wonderful story for children, promoting the message of perseverance and hope.
