ENEMIES OF SLAVERY

Adler gives 14 “enemies of slavery,” black and white, the barest bones of coverage in this series of thumbnail sketches. Expected names—Douglass, Lincoln, Stowe, Truth, Tubman—are arranged alphabetically along with some lesser-known figures: Elijah Lovejoy, Denmark Vesey, Theodore Dwight Weld. He gives each figure one page of text, many heavily larded with quotations, and one facing illustration. The dissonance between the superficiality of the biographies and the frequently complex language of these quotations begs serious questions as to this offering’s audience: if it is intended simply as an introduction to the subject, then how can young neophytes be expected to make sense of such statements as Frederick Douglass’s exhortation that, “Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without rival”? Smith’s awkward paintings are a sad complement to Adler’s neither-fish-nor-fowl narrative—the whole is one of those many good intentions that pave the road to you-know-where. (Nonfiction. 6-10)