Watch and Wait; The Young Fugitives
Published in 1862, during the height of the American Civil War, this groundbreaking children's novel follows three young fugitives - a girl whose fair skin allows her to pass, a nearly white boy, and a dark-skinned boy - as they flee the brutal South and seek refuge with the Grants, a compassionate New England family. Their stories of escape, of families torn apart, and of the horrors they witnessed in bondage unfold against the tender hospitality of their rescuers. The novel refuses to look away from the moral catastrophe of slavery while insisting that children can understand its weight. Oliver Optic, a pen name for William Taylor Adams, wrote with revolutionary intent: to make the suffering of the enslaved visible to young white readers and to argue that compassion requires action. The book is a product of its era, with dated language and sentimental conventions that modern readers may find jarring, but its heart beats in the right place. It endures as a curious artifact of moral fiction, one of the few children's books of its time that placed Black characters at its center and asked readers to see their humanity.
Editions
Link to this book
Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/watch-and-wait-the-young-fugitives-4b7241af-9a59-49e2-9483-c30fa9158414"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read Watch and Wait; The Young Fugitives by Oliver Optic free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/watch-and-wait-the-young-fugitives-4b7241af-9a59-49e2-9483-c30fa9158414)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/watch-and-wait-the-young-fugitives-4b7241af-9a59-49e2-9483-c30fa9158414][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read Watch and Wait; The Young Fugitives by Oliver Optic free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/watch-and-wait-the-young-fugitives-4b7241af-9a59-49e2-9483-c30fa9158414Cite this book
Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.
Optic, Oliver. Watch and Wait; The Young Fugitives. Lex, lex-books.com/book/watch-and-wait-the-young-fugitives-4b7241af-9a59-49e2-9483-c30fa9158414.Optic, O. (n.d.). Watch and Wait; The Young Fugitives. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/watch-and-wait-the-young-fugitives-4b7241af-9a59-49e2-9483-c30fa9158414Optic, Oliver. Watch and Wait; The Young Fugitives. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/watch-and-wait-the-young-fugitives-4b7241af-9a59-49e2-9483-c30fa9158414.
