Reviews

Molly Bannaky by Chris K. Soentpiet, Alice McGill

horrisbg's review against another edition

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3.0

Historical Fiction, for grades four and above. This book has beautiful illustrations that really take the reader to the place and time of the story. I could not get over how beautiful the pictures were!

aprilthelibrarian's review against another edition

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4.0

Interesting woman and family, and lovely pictures. Make sure to read the note about her grandson in the back.

anellawrites's review against another edition

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5.0

Molly Walsh Bannaky was quite a woman. Strong, brave and free of prejudices, we could all stand to be a lot more like her.

claudiaswisher's review against another edition

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4.0

A fascinating story of an English servant convicted and sentenced as an indentured servant in America. She works hard and makes an unexpected success of herself. She buys a slave with the intention of freeing him. She freed him and married him. Their grandson was Benjamin Banneker, a renowned scientist and surveyor.

This is an utterly amazing story. But because of the children's book format, huge chunks of Molly's story has to be glossed over. Now I need to find an adult biography.

According to my research, early biographies of Banneker did not include the story of a white grandmother. More and more interesting.

dwebster1031's review against another edition

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2.0

A story about racial oppression that whitewashes over all of the racial oppression

bibliocyclist's review

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3.0

The not-widely-known story of Benjamin Banneker's grandparents: a white, indentured servant woman sent from England for her "crime" and the African slave who helped her survive and with whom she fell in love. Gr. 3-7.
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