I bought this book at a Revolutionar War event this past weekend and I've read it 3 times already (Purchased Sunday, and it's now Tuesday morning). My husband can't believe that I can't put this down. But I find it fascinating reading. Many of the little tips in here are still on many websites today for frugal living (olive oil and a little white vinegar for a wood furniture polish, for example).

Easy and fascinating reading for anyone interested in history, frugal living, and occassionaly a good laugh.

The thoughts and ideas of the 1800's could be applied to todays world to make it a better place. Like putting more energy into our morals and pride rather than trying to keep up with the Jones'. A wonderfull and funny look at many things that have gone wrong with society over the years.
I read just a few pages in a little store, than had to come home and find it to buy for myself.

Both the prose and the basic philosophy espoused by this book are refreshing on todays palate. No over-wrought writing or get ahead mentality here. The book gives a wonderful view of household life in the 1800's, covering ground from pudding recipes to the best and cheapenst method for cleaning your candle stick holders and treating common ailments. Liberally spiced with the philosophy of a frugal housewife who's example many of us would do well to follow.

David Catrow takes a Thanksgiving classic for a wild ride! The long and stressful holiday road trip to a distant relative's home, with the car stuffed full of siblings, pets, and food, is a universal experience. In this whimsical picture book, the baby of the family escapes into a joyful, snowy Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, where characters, floats and balloons take on a life of their own. The lively and imaginative scenes keep the pace of rhythm of the text, and Catrow's cool midseason tones achieve the not-quite- fall-but-not-quite-winter effect. An ideal purchase for the car trip to Grandma's - or for the sibling whom you used to draw seat boundries with.

David Catrow is one of my favorite illustrators, and he definately puts a new spin on a classic Thanksgiving Day rhyme in this book. . .I especially love the cat!

In the years that I've been collecting historic cookbooks and cookbooks adapting historic recipes, this is the best cookbook that I've ever run across. Historic cookbooks tends to fall into one of three categories: 1) Reprints of originals with no modern measuring equivalents or other information that enables a modern cook to reproduce the recipes. 2) Adaptations of historic recipes with modern ingredients and techniques but no indication of what the original recipe involved. 3) Dutch-oven cookbooks that may recreate some historic recipes, but again with little or no information about the original recipe. "Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook" is unusual in that it provides the text of 19th century cookbook author Lydia Child's original recipe, the modern adaptation, and the hearth-cooking technique. By comparing the old with the new, a cook should be able to use this cookbook to adapt recipes from other historic cookbooks that do not provide a modern version.

The editor has selected recipes that can be created with easily available ingredients--and has omitted recipes for things that few modern Americans would ever want to eat--such as a calf's head that is build with the windpipe hanging out of the pot to drain off cooking juices.

In addition to recipes for soups, main dishes, vegetables, breads and desserts, the cookbook provides information about early 19th century meals. One of the best features is a section on the various fire-building techniques that are necessary depending on the type of cooking--for instance, how to build a quick-cooking fire for frying versus a fire that will produce coals for slow-cooking techniques.

The recipes that I've tried so far turned out quite well. Raspberry Shrub, a refreshing beverage made with a sweetened rasperry vinegar, was a hit with our children. The Cider Cake, which I baked for my birthday, turned out more bread-like than cake-like, but was a hit with the party guests nonetheless. I'm definitely looking forward to experimenting with this cookbook.

This autobiographical condemnation of the south's Peculiar Institution puts a face on the suffering of the enslaved. American history is full of accounts of slavery which tend to broad overviews of the institution, whereas this book is written by an escaped slave who does not flinch at sharing every detail of her miserable life. Unlike other narratives which distorted the slave's voice through the perspective of the interviewers/authors who were notorious for exaggerating the uneducated slaves' broken english, this book is largely Ms. Jacobs' own words. She was taught to read and write as a child by a kind mistress, so she was able to put her thoughts on paper with clarity that surprised many. Ms. Jacobs had an editor, but this book seems to be her unfiltered view of the world.

It is one thing to hear about how slaveholders took liberties with female slaves, it is quite another to read in stark detail about women being commanded to lay down in fields, young girls being seduced and impregnated and their offspring sold to rid the slaveholder of the evidence of his licentiousness. The author talks about jealous white women, enraged by their husbands' behavior, taking it out on the hapless slaves. The white women were seen as ladies, delicate creatures prone to fainting spells and hissy fits whereas the Black women were beasts of burden, objects of lust and contempt simultaneously. Some slave women resisted these lustful swine and were beaten badly because of it. It was quite a conundrum. To be sure, white women suffered under this disgusting system too, though not to the same degree as the female slaves who had no one to protect them and their virtue. Even the notion of a slave having virtue is mocked. The author rejected the slaveholder's advances and dared to hope that she would be allowed to marry a free black man who loved and respected her. Not only was she not allowed to marry him, she was forbidden to see him or speak to him again.

The author shows us the depth of a mother's love as she suffers mightily to see that her children are not also brought under the yoke of slavery. Though she was able to elude her odious master, she does take up with some other white man in hopes that he would be able to buy her freedom. Her "owner" refuses to sell her and tells her that she and her children are the property of his minor daughter. Her lover seems kind enough as he claims his children and offers to give them his name, and he did eventually buy them, though he failed to emancipate them to spare them from a life of forced servitude. Ms. Jacobs noted that slavery taught her not to trust the promises of white men. Having lived in town most of her life, Ms. Jacobs is sent to the plantation of her master's cruel son to broken in after she continues to refuses his sexual advances. She is resigned to this fate until she learns that her children -- who were never treated like slaves -- were to be brought to the plantation also. It is then that she takes flight.

After enduring 7-years of confinement in cramped quarters under the roof of her grandmother's house, the author escapes to the North which is not quite the haven she imagined. Still, it is better than the south, and she makes friends who buy her freedom leaving her both relieved and bitter that she is still seen as property to be bought and sold like livestock. In New York Ms. Jacobs is reunited with her children and a beloved brother who'd escaped a few years ago while accompanying his master -- her former lover -- to the free states.

There is no fairytale ending to this story because the author endures plenty of abuse and uncertainty even after she makes it to the North. She is hunted down by the relentless slaveowners who were aided by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and "The bloodhounds of the North." This is a wrenching account of this shameful period of American history, and should be required reading for all.

Incidents in the Life Of A Slave Girl is a harrowing, personal experience of a AA female born and raised during the tumultuous, infamous and tragic era of slavery in America's history. Harriett Jacobs, aka Linda Brent, tells in her own voice-one that is explicit and easy to understand-the story of a young woman born into the brutal, horrendous slavery era who later escapes to freedom in the North. Incidents is emotional and the feelings are raw as you experience the tale of a slave who desired freedom so badly that she hid for SEVEN YEARS in a narrow, cramped quarter without much freedom of movement. The story is riveting and moving and shows what an individual is able to accomplish in spite of sex, race and slavery. Incidents is a story of bravery in light of insurmountable circumstances and ones belief that they can succeed in spite of unmeasurable difficulties.

Incidents is an excellent reading selection for a bookgroup and a book that I highly recommend to everyone. Remember the story and share the story so that history doesn't repeat itself.

Harriet Jacobs' (1813-1897) "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" is one of the few accounts of Southern slavery written by a woman. The book was published in 1861 through the efforts of Maria Child, an abolitionist who edited the book and wrote an introduction to it. The book had its origin in a series of letters Jacobs wrote between 1853 and 1861 to her friends in the abolitionist movement, notably a woman named Amy Post. Historically, there was some doubt about the authorship of the book and about the authenticity of the incidents it records. These doubts have largely been put to rest by the discovery of the letters.

The book indeed has elements of a disguise and of a novel. Jacobs never uses her real name but calls herself instead "Linda Brent." The other characters in the book are also given pseudonyms. Jacobs tells us in the Preface to the book (signed "Linda Brent") that she changed names in order to protect the privacy of indiduals but that the incidents recounted in the narrative are "no fiction".

Jacobs was born in slave rural North Carolina. As a young girl, she learned to read and write, which was highly rare among slaves. At about the age of 11 she was sent to live as a slave to a doctor who also owned a plantation, called "Dr. Flint" in the book.

Jacobs book describes well the cruelties of the "Peculiar Institution -- in terms of its beatings, floggings, and burnings, overwork, starvation, and dehumanization. It focuses as well upon the selling and wrenching apart of families that resulted from the commodification of people in the slave system. But Jacobs' book is unique in that it describes first-hand the sexual indignities to which women were subjected in slavery. (Other accounts, such as those of Frederick Douglass, were written by men.) The book is also unusual in that Jacobs does not portray herself entirely as a hero but describes the nature of the steps she took to avoid becoming the sexual slave of Flint. Thus, when Flint subjected her to repeated sexual advances from the time Jacobs reached the age of 16, she tried to avoid him by beginning an affair with a white, single attorney with whom she had two children. When Flint's advances persisted, Jacobs formed the determination to try to secure her freedom.

The bulk of the book describes how Jacobs hid precariously in a cramped attic for seven years waiting for the opporunity to secure her freedom. There are also accounts of her prior attempts to leave slavery, including a particularly harrowing account of several days in a place aptly named "Snaky Swamp."

Jacobs describes her relationship with her grandmother, a free black woman who was probably the major inspiration of her life. She also describes well her love and concern for her children, conceived through the liasion with the white attorney.

This book offers a rare perspective on American slavery as it affected women. It is also a testament, I think, to the value of literacy and knowledge as an instrument for winning and preserving free human life. Although this story is not pretty, it is a testament to human persistence in the face of adversity and to the precious character of human freedom.

The subject of this book is especially important as a role model for young girls: Lydia Maria Child was unafraid to let her views be known, even if they proved to be unpopular, and defended what she felt was right. She rarely declined an opportunity to try a new endeavor.

This book presents an age-appropriate look at the life of Child within the context of the time and place in which she lived. The author's description of the characters' "thoughts & feelings" ("Lydia wondered what her life would be like with Mary.") and use of conversation add to the readability of the book in a way that may be unacceptable in a book for a different age group.

Teachers and parents will want their students to read about the 1800s and learn some history about a determined and resolute woman who challenged the cultural mores of the times with her writings. Lydia became a popular fiction writer in her early twenties, but because of her strong anti-slavery beliefs risked her fame and certainly her fortune by editing an abolutionists' newspaper.
As a former 5th grade techer, I think this would be an ideal book for 4th & 5th grade girls who would be interested in learning about the strength and power of one woman to affect the times in which she lived.

This book has a very important role in the post Civil War imagining of a different future. Child always presents optimistic endings to fantastically complicated scenarios: here two sisters from an illicit liaison are shocked to find themselves illegitimate and liable to be sold as slaves when their father dies. Most of the book details their adventures in romance and at the very end a few Civil War scenes serve to bring their stories back together. It's hard to follow the plot, but there's a lot to like about this book nonetheless. Dana Nelson's commentary is quite helpful. And Child is a very important 19th century writer.