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A review by mariahistryingtoread
I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly: The Diary of Patsy, a Freed Girl, Mars Bluff, South Carolina, 1865 by Joyce Hansen
4.0
I read a few Dear America books when I was a kid and I always enjoyed them so I decided to revisit the one Black one I remembered for Black History month. There could be more, however, this is the only one I recall seeing or reading.
Clearly intended for a younger audience it does a good job of not totally sanitizing slavery while keeping it kid friendly. It takes a decidedly optimistic borderline naive tone, but I can’t fault it for that given the intended demographic. While I’m glad we’re having more honest conversations about how slavery never truly ended just transformed, this book is a good place to start a dialogue.
As the title suggests, Patsy is a freed girl living on a plantation at Mars Bluff. In the midst of a mean spirited game Patsy secretly learns to read and write. As with all of the Dear America series (as far as I know) the book is written like a journal documenting the pertinent events over the course of a year in her life. The book begins at the very tail end of the civil war basically right before Abraham Lincoln was murdered.
Patsy’s first year as a freed girl is largely spent gathering courage to be the kind of person she feels she is on the inside. She has a stutter and a bad limp so the other Black people and her former masters believe she’s incapable of higher intelligence. Patsy is determined to prove them wrong yet she struggles to speak up for herself when she’s spent so much of her life being dismissed out of hand. She hopes that the eventual arrival of a promised schoolteacher will allow her the platform to demonstrate her capabilities. But, as the days continue to pass with no schoolteacher in sight she comes to learn that she no longer needs other people to give power to her; she has power inside her waiting to be set free.
It was a really solid read. It holds up to my sparse memories. It’s bittersweet to me now knowing that Patsy’s hope for the future is far, far off - Reconstruction which is an arguably unsuccessful venture depending on what angle you approach it from is right around the corner - and that all of the rights she was anticipating still need to be hard won. I was relieved to find that the real Patsy at least seemed to have a good life. It was nice to have some kind of epilogue to put a button on it even if it wasn’t really for Patsy the character.
I definitely recommend it especially given the short length. It’ll take you practically no time to get through it so if you’ve got a free afternoon to kill, go for it.
Clearly intended for a younger audience it does a good job of not totally sanitizing slavery while keeping it kid friendly. It takes a decidedly optimistic borderline naive tone, but I can’t fault it for that given the intended demographic. While I’m glad we’re having more honest conversations about how slavery never truly ended just transformed, this book is a good place to start a dialogue.
As the title suggests, Patsy is a freed girl living on a plantation at Mars Bluff. In the midst of a mean spirited game Patsy secretly learns to read and write. As with all of the Dear America series (as far as I know) the book is written like a journal documenting the pertinent events over the course of a year in her life. The book begins at the very tail end of the civil war basically right before Abraham Lincoln was murdered.
Patsy’s first year as a freed girl is largely spent gathering courage to be the kind of person she feels she is on the inside. She has a stutter and a bad limp so the other Black people and her former masters believe she’s incapable of higher intelligence. Patsy is determined to prove them wrong yet she struggles to speak up for herself when she’s spent so much of her life being dismissed out of hand. She hopes that the eventual arrival of a promised schoolteacher will allow her the platform to demonstrate her capabilities. But, as the days continue to pass with no schoolteacher in sight she comes to learn that she no longer needs other people to give power to her; she has power inside her waiting to be set free.
It was a really solid read. It holds up to my sparse memories. It’s bittersweet to me now knowing that Patsy’s hope for the future is far, far off - Reconstruction which is an arguably unsuccessful venture depending on what angle you approach it from is right around the corner - and that all of the rights she was anticipating still need to be hard won. I was relieved to find that the real Patsy at least seemed to have a good life. It was nice to have some kind of epilogue to put a button on it even if it wasn’t really for Patsy the character.
I definitely recommend it especially given the short length. It’ll take you practically no time to get through it so if you’ve got a free afternoon to kill, go for it.