All together, this is an exciting story about a most important part of American history.Hot-tempered Will Spencer is pretty sure of himself when he leaves the small town of Atwater, Ohio to make his fortune as a dry goods peddler. Elise and her mother become crucial in Will's later escape from the slave catchers.

There is a bit of a romantic interest, as Will meets a young German immigrant in Cincinnati who helps him choose the goods to stock in his peddler's wagon. Her ability to describe the geography, the weather conditions, the methods of the Underground Railroad, and the motives of her teenage protagonists is excellent. Will's own life is in jeopardy, his new business destroyed, yet he eventually succeeds in his mission, although not in any way as planned.Īyres is good at making clear the issues, moral and political, surrounding the slave trade in the U.S. Excitement mounts as Will manages to convey seven young boys and an older woman across Kentucky to the site of a station on the Underground Railroad on the Ohio side of the Ohio River. Will does find Noah's family but all plans change on the spur of the moment. He finds the blacksmith, Ezekiel, a slave Noah has told him will help in the escape of the brother and sister. He does get started with his peddling business, buying goods in warehouses in Cincinnati and actually is successful as he travels into Kentucky, selling and trading at isolated farmhouses. Will is appalled by what he finds in Cincinnati and then farther south in Kentucky as he encounters slave catchers, slaveholders, even slave breeders. Will decides he can begin his peddling business in that direction, doing what he can for Noah's brother and sister. His plans change after he helps Noah, a runaway slave, who pleads with Will to travel to Kentucky and try to steal Noah's brother and sister, slaves at a breeding farm-a place that breeds slaves for profit, selling the boys to Mississippi to work on the cotton plantations and using the girls for breeding purposes. Stealing South features Lucy's brother Will, who now is 16 years old and wants to become a peddler, leaving his small town behind. They are a way station on a major route from the Ohio River across to Cleveland and Lake Erie, enabling slaves to arrive in Canada and become free. To quote from the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, May 2001: This is a companion book to Ayres' North by Night, which tells of a family, especially the daughter Lucy, active in the Underground Railroad in a small town in Ohio. Stealing South a story of the Underground Railroad. Stealing South a story of the Underground Railroad.' Retrieved from Stealing South a story of the Underground Railroad.' The Free Library.

Stealing South by Katherine Ayres