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Meet Christopher Paul Curtis • Meet the Author • Nick Glass of www.TeachingBooks.net Christopher Paul Curtis interviewed Christopher Paul Curtis at BookExpo Canada 2007 about Curtis’s novel Elijah of Buxton. What led you to discover was ideal because it was near the town of Buxton? Windsor, Ontario which is on the border between Canada CPC: Somewhere in the back of and the U.S. Originally, slaves my mind I knew about the town escaping from the United States of Buxton, but I had forgotten just crossed the Detroit River its significance. I lived 40 miles (separating Detroit and Windsor) away from Buxton—a town that and found freedom in Windsor. was historically a safety zone for However, the Fugitive Slave Act freed slaves—but I never really of 1850 made it a requirement put it together in a meaningful for white people to find out if the way. It was the experience of black person that they were con- visiting the actual geographical Elijah of Buxton offers fronting was a slave or had been place of Buxton that made me readers a new perspective a slave, and it was a requirement on the issue of slavery in think about putting the story that you hold that person until our nation’s history. This there. I was driving to Toronto you found out. one day and I saw a sign that book tells the remark- Because of this law, people able story of Elijah—a said, “Buxton: five kilometers,” were kidnapping people from first-generation free- and the sign triggered memories Windsor and taking them south born child and the son of from history class. I took the and selling them as slaves. escaped slaves—who lives Buxton exit and I drove around in the slavery-free town and got a feel for the place. Then Windsor was basically too close of Buxton, Ontario near I went home and got on the the U.S.-Canadian border. Internet and did a lot of research. What circumstances led From my experience of going to you to examine slavery Buxton and subsequently visiting from this vantage point? its history museum, I thought, “These are people who made it CPC: I’d always wanted to out of slavery, so maybe I can write a book about slavery, but write a story about slavery from I couldn’t think of a way to that angle.” That’s what seemed approach it. I had always thought to work for me. that it would be unimaginable to write a book from the point Can you talk more of view of a slave. I couldn’t about the historical imagine putting myself in the significance of Buxton? position of someone who’s been so debased and so dehumanized. CPC: The town of Buxton, But Buxton was a place where Ontario was established in slaves had a different experience. 1849 as a safe haven for freed slaves. The location LibrarySparks • February 2008 Web Resources Meet the Author to the border, so that’s how a writer trying to understand CPC: To me, humor and trag- Buxton got established. Going slavery, I could relate to Elijah. edy are totally intertwined. forty miles farther into Canada Here was someone who was not Every joke that you can think of to the town of Buxton provided a slave but at the same time had has a thread of something hor- a protective cushion. Buxton sympathy and empathy for who rible going on in it. Humor has became a safety zone from the his people were and how they always been a way to deal with Fugitive Slave Act. had freed themselves. tragedy. If something horrible happens in the world, within 15 The rich history of I wanted to show how Elijah minutes there are sidesplitting Buxton provided a dra- came to understand the mean- jokes about it on the Internet. I matic setting for this ing of slavery from his parents. think that young people tend to book. How did you I thought about how his parents be drawn to the funny side of develop the identity of would explain what slavery was things. Particularly, young people Elijah and his place in the about. I wondered how they Buxton community? don’t always see the importance would do it because it was so of certain events in the way that close to them: so personal, and CPC: I thought about what it adults do—they just don’t have so horrible. I think the fact that would be like for Elijah to be a the experience yet to grasp the Elijah was free from birth turned first-generation freeborn child. To significance. Therefore, they can him into a different kind of per- me, there is a contrast between find the humor in tragic situa- son than his parents were. the freedom of his childhood in tions easier than adults. Buxton and the painful history Can you describe other In Elijah of Buxton, you of his parents’ experiences as ways in which you imag- created a shocking and slaves in the United States. Elijah ined the lives of these hilarious scene in which has to deal with the fact that his characters? Frederick Douglass comes parents were slaves, and the fact to Buxton. While there, CPC: The main thing I thought that at any time people from Elijah has the misfor- about was what the day-to-day America could come, as they did, tune of getting sick on life would be like for a person and kidnap people from Buxton him. What can you share who had been a slave, but who and try to take them back to about the development of was now free. I wondered what the United States. This ten- this episode? their everyday state of mind sion between Elijah’s innocence would be like. Elijah’s parents CPC: When I’ve spoken to and his awareness of being in a would have been tremendously groups and I explain this scene, very serious situation is present affected by their experience of I get these looks that say, “Throw throughout the story. escaping slavery. Nowadays up on Frederick Douglass! He’s How did the contrast we know so much about an icon!” But by writing this between Elijah’s viewpoint Posttraumatic Stress Disorder scene, I am pointing out that and his parents’ view- that we can identify some of this icon is a person. He was a point shape your personal what they must have experi- human being and these things understanding of slavery? enced. I imagined that even after happen. Rather than making fun all of that, there would still be of him or degrading him, I think CPC: Writing this book through the humanity. that this fictitious incident in the the eyes of a ten-year-old who book brings out his humanity. was born free gave me the abil- There are equally strong comic and tragic ele- We get a glimpse of Frederick ity to look at slavery from a dif- Douglass as a person, and not ferent perspective. Elijah didn’t ments in Elijah of Buxton. How do you go about just a historical figure. experience slavery firsthand but weaving these threads was trying to understand it. As together? February 2008 Web Resources • LibrarySparks Meet the Author In what other ways did for making a town work. If you kid who wouldn’t know what to you blend fact and fiction can read and write well, then you do with it, she knew she could for the sake of Elijah’s can learn how to do pretty much trust Elijah. Through Elijah, she story? anything. African Americans who could give this child a life. It was were enslaved were not allowed the ultimate sacrifice for her and CPC: As a writer, I think that it’s to learn to read and write upon it was the ultimate gift Elijah gave essential to mix fiction and fact. punishment of death. It is human her. She would be free, and her I don’t try to do anything that is nature that when you get the child would have the chance for going to change any historical chance to take something that has freedom. happenings, but I have to fill in been held away from you, you all the things that happened, even really go for it. Reverend William Can you describe the role if they didn’t happen in real life. King realized, and the people of of the Liberty Bell in the history of Buxton? I have John Brown and Frederick Buxton came to realize, that edu- Douglass coming to Buxton at the cation was and still is the key. same time. Research will show CPC: Buxton was a very well- that they were never there at the What are your thoughts known community throughout same time. But with things like on the role of education in the United States. Slave com- that, I’ll take liberties because it today’s times? munities knew about it. Freed adds to the story and it makes it African-American communities more interesting. Readers know CPC: Education is the one thing knew about it. As a gesture of that it’s not a completely histori- that can’t be taken away from gratitude and appreciation of cally accurate story. It’s fiction. It’s you. Reading and writing are what was going on in Buxton, a novel. the two greatest skills that we’ll a group of former slaves in ever learn in school. If that’s all Pittsburgh put money together The role of education in you learn in school, you’re doing and cast a 500-pound brass bell the lives of freed slaves all right.
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