Meet Addy Sacrifice

Meet Addy: Appropriate for Second Grade?
Meet Addy follows the story of a young girl and her family, who are bound in slavery during the American Civil War. Addy's family is planning to escape, but before they can do so her brother and father are sold to a different owner. Addy and her mother risk everything and run away from the plantation, traveling north to Philadelphia, in the hopes of reuniting with Addy's brother and father. When their very lives are at risk should they be caught, what gets them through is love for each other and the desire for freedom.
Meet Addy is a simple and straightforward story about a girl and her family wanting to be free, and how the love of her family helps in attaining that goal. The intended age group of the

In Meet Addy, depictions of violence are kept to a minimum but they are not glossed over. There are three references to people being whipped. The first is Addy's brother when he tried to run away from the plantation: Addy also gets whipped:. These two instances help portray the cruelty of the slave master without delving deeper into the pain and suffering caused. Seven and eight year olds should be able to glean the cruelty of slavery just from these instances, while still shielding them from the reality of the atrocities committed. Considering the amount of violence in other media intended for the same age range, this is minimal in

It discusses how Africans were captured and forced into servitude, how they were sold to work on plantations, their living conditions, and how they were punished. It covers the abolishment of slavery in the North, President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and the secession of the southern states over slavery which started the Civil War. Most importantly, it covers how abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas and others established the Underground Railroad in order to help slaves find a way to the north where they could live free from the shackles of