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Book Review: 'Love 12 Miles Long'

"Love 12 Miles Long"
Sam Manno
"Love 12 Miles Long"

Book review of "Love 12 Miles Long," heard on "Children's Corner" 02/20/16.

"Love 12 Miles Long", by Glenda Armand, Illustrated by Colin Bootman. Published by Lee & Low Books Inc., New York, 2011.

Mama would walk 12 miles in the darkness of night to visit her son and then return to the plantation she lived as a slave by daybreak.

The young Frederick Douglass asks his mama how she could walk so far,  “what is the first mile for?” His Mama answers: “I forget how tired I am. I forget that my back hurts and my hands and feet ache. I forget that I’ve worked all day and have to be in the fields again at sunup. And when the forgetting is done, I start remembering. That’s what the second mile is for.”

Mama then recounts the meaning of each mile to her son…. Mile four is for looking up at the stars. Mile eight is for smiling and Fredrick asked mama what’s the twelfth mile for…love.

The author Glenda Armand has worked many years as a teacher and school Librarian and is passionate about history, reading and writing about African American Slaves. Her Web site states that she writes about, “people who struggled for freedom and dignity in the face of overwhelming circumstances”.

Collin Bootman has filled his illustrations with the light of the stars and moon.

Sam Manno, that’s me! The host and producer of the Children's Corner.
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