Racing to Freedom series by Alison Hart (Books 1&3)
Requirements: EPUB/MOBI Reader, 5.5 MB
Overview: Alison Hart is a pseudonym for writer Alice Leonhardt
A Virginia author of over twenty mysteries and historical fiction novels for children and teens, loves “writing books that keep young readers glued to the pages.” At the age of seven she wrote, illustrated and self-published The Wild Dog, a book which she shows to readers to make the point that it is never too early to be an author.
Genre: Historical Fiction
1. Gabriel’s Horses
In the first book of this engrossing middle-grade trilogy set during the Civil War, a young Kentucky slave dares to pursue his dream of becoming a jockey.
The year is 1864 and twelve-year-old Gabriel hopes to one day become a famous jockey. Although he is a the son of a free black father and a slave mother-making him a slave as well-he loves to help his father, one of the best horse trainers in Kentucky, care for the thoroughbred racehorses on Master Giles’s farm.
But the violence of war disrupts the familiar routine of daily life on the farm. One-Arm Dan Parmer and his band of Confederate raiders are threatening area farms and stealing horses. When Gabriel’s father enlists in a Colored Battalion to help the Union Army and earn enough money to purchase freedom for his wife and son, Gabriel is both proud and worried. But the absence of his father brings the arrival of Mr. Newcastle, a white horse trainer with harsh, cruel methods for handling horses…and people.
Now it is up to Gabriel to protect the horses he loves from Mr. Newcastle and keep them safely out of the clutches of One-Arm Dan and his men.
2. Gabriel’s Journey
In the final book of the Racing to Freedom trilogy, ex-slave Gabriel leaves behind a successful horse racing career to join his parents at Camp Nelson, where his father is a Sergeant in the Fifth U.S. Colored Calvary of the Union Army. Twelve-year-old Gabriel is too young to join the regiment as a soldier, but finds a job as personal groom to Champion, the unruly horse that belongs to Col. Waite, the white commander. When the Calvary receives orders to join white regiments in an attack on the Virginia salt works, Gabriel surreptitiously gets a hold of a horse and a uniform and joins the troops. But being a soldier is a lot harder than he imagined. Bad, weather, rough riding, dwindling supplies, and blatant racism wear heavily on his spirit. When his father and Col. Waite are not among the weary and wounded who return from battle, Gabriel mounts Champion and rides to the battlefield in search of them.
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