Daniel Arabus is a 14-year-old runaway slave from Stratford, Conn., who overhears certain arguments that preceded the North-South compromise on slavery. How he ends up carrying the crucial message to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, while posters are being circulated for his capture, is the story the Collier brothers tell.

Though "Jump Ship to Freedom" is patterned like their other novels …, it is not as strong. Once again a young boy is thrust into a pivotal moment in Revolutionary history. But Dan Arabus is not as convincing as the authors' other heroes….

Dan is almost miraculously perceptive, analytical, brave, resourceful and just plain lucky. But his experience, credible or not, illuminates a historical time and place in fine detail, even as it dramatizes a black youth's struggle to understand how political events shape his life.

Cynthia King, in a review of "Jump Ship to Freedom," in The...