Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad (review)

Inspired by family stories of relatives who lived through the Civil War, Cole presents in wordless format the experience of a young girl who discovers a runaway slave on her family's property during the war. Rebel soldiers, identifiable by their stars and bars, pass by the farm while the girl goes about her chores. In the storage shed, an eye peeks out from behind a bunch of cornstalks, and although the girl is frightened, she returns at night with food wrapped in a napkin. Offerings of pie, biscuit, cornbread, and a chicken drumstick are delivered to the unseen refugee, and the family obviously professes ignorance when bounty hunters arrive with a handbill demanding the return of a runaway. When the child returns to the shed to make another late-night check on their desperate guest, the runaway has gone, but a cornhusk doll clad in the checkered napkin lies on the floor as a heartfelt thank-you. This is going to be tough to parse at times for youngsters: adult intervention or the closing notes will likely be required to recognize the significance of the opening pages, which feature a quilt draped over the split-rail fence to indicate the house as friendly to runaways; it's also never really clear how much the girl's family actually knows. Still, this is an involving format for introducing children to the workings of the Underground Railroad, and the atmospheric pencil drawings, reminiscent of Chris Van Allsburg's monochromatic work, will draw children into the tenebrous adventure.