HENRY BROWN wrote that long before he came to be known as "Box," he "entered the world a slave." He was put to work as a child and passed down from one generation to the next—as property. When he was an adult, his wife and children were sold away from him out of spite. Henry Brown watched as his family left bound in chains, headed to the deeper South. What more could be taken from him? But then hope—and help—came in the from of the Underground Railroad. Escape!

Celebrated poet Carole Boston Weatherford powerfully narrates Henry Brown's story of how he came to ship himself in a box from slavery to freedom. Told in stanzas of six lines each, each line representing one side of a box, and augmented with historical records and excerpts from Henry Brown's own writing, Box is a moving story about the cost and fragility of freedom.

From the dust jacket