Escapes!

by Scandiffio, Laura

• ISBN13: 9781550378221
• ISBN10: 1550378228
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Pgw

Summary

Ten nail-biting stories of real-life escapes.In 1979, the streets of Iran's capital city, Tehran, turned ugly. Six Americans caught in the uprising found protection at the Canadian embassy. Through the feverish efforts of the embassy staff, the fugitives were disguised as Canadians -- complete with fictitious passports -- and were able to escape the country.History is full of such daring escapes, often creative, always heart-pounding. Escapes! recounts ten of these nail-biting tales. Discover Lady Nithsdale's ruse to free her husband from the impenetrable Tower of London in 1716. Fall into Douglas Bader's harrowing escape from a plummeting Spitfire in World War II. Hold your breath as two families drift over the Berlin Wall in a homemade hot-air balloon!From getaway gladiators to runaway slaves, from the endless Sahara to the impassable Bastille, each exciting story will have young readers eager to escape into the next!Key Features: Fascinating true stories of ingenuity, drama, suspense, and heroics Stories from throughout history, from ancient Rome to the modern day Black & white line drawings with each story

Author Biography

Laura Scandiffio has worked as an editor for both children's and adult trade books. As an author, her previous book, The Martial Arts Book, showcased her love of history, her meticulous research, and her knack for storytelling.

Stephen MacEachern's illustrations also appear in Tunnels!, the first book in the True Stories from the Edge series, and 38 Ways to Entertain Your Babysitter.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Breakout from the Bastille	p. 9
"From here there is no escape..."	p. 26
Through Traitor's Gate	p. 42
Fugitives in Iran	p. 57
Falling from the Sky	p. 74
Under Siege	p. 86
The Gladiator War	p. 99
Over the Wall	p. 112
Slaves of the Sahara	p. 129
Tickets to Freedom	p. 147
Sources	p. 163
Index	p. 167
About the Author	p. 170
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Introduction: Struggles for Freedom A slave, chains on her ankles and wrists, is tugged to the auction block. A man sent to prison for his beliefs watches his guard close the cell door and fears that he has seen daylight for the last time. A soldier, hands on his head, is marched at gunpoint through the grim gates of his enemy's prisoner of war camp. All very different people, from different times and places, and all dreaming of the same thing Escape! It's an impulse every human being feels when trapped. No one is willingly confined, and every captive dreams of freedom. A special few will act on this slim hope. Men and women have used their wits and courage to escape from all sorts of threats: from slave owners, from dungeons, from enemy armies, from physical danger. They may be fleeing jailers or governments. Some have been shut in by four walls, while other prisons are the kind you can't touch, but which trap people alive -- in slavery or oppression. The greater the obstacles to be overcome, the more impossible escape seems, the more the stories fascinate us. Across the ages, different places have come to mind as the ultimate challenges for escapers. Each era has had its notorious prisons -- from England's Tower of London, where people who posed a threat to the government awaited execution, to France's Bastille, where inmates could be locked away their whole lives without a trial. Slavery whether in ancient Rome or in many of the American states during the 1800s -- was a fate millions dreamed of fleeing. The prisoner of war camps of the Second World War (1939-45), with their barbed wire, armed guards, and spotlights, seemed inescapable to all but a determined few. And the "Cold War" that followed, between the Soviet Union and the Western powers, brought with it the infamous East German border wall, which kept all but the most desperate defectors behind its barrier of concrete, mines, and armed patrols with orders to shoot. And yet despite the odds, a few found ways past these deadly traps, ways that show the amazing range of human creativity. They got out with clever disguises or ingenious hiding places; by patiently waiting or boldly dashing forward; by using whatever materials were at hand, crafting tools of escape from even the most innocent-looking objects. *** "I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now I was free. There was such a glory over everything, the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven." Harriet Tubman, an American slave who escaped from her master in 1849, remembered her first thrilling taste of freedom. Her reaction is surprisingly similar to the feelings recalled by other escapers, whatever the place and time. Many speak of the same exhilarating moment when, though they could scarcely believe it, they were actually free. Once Harriet Tubman made it north to freedom she wasn't content to stay there, however. Despite the dangers, she returned south again and again to help other slaves escape, more than three hundred in all. She became part of the network of antislavery helpers known as the Underground Railroad, people who hid runaway slaves on their journeys north out of the slave states, often all the way to Canada. Still, escape from the slave states was no easy matter. Often thousands of miles had to be crossed, with professional slave catchers close on runaways' trails. But until the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in 1863, many were desperate enough to try. One slave even had friends package him inside a wooden box, three feet by two feet, and mail him to the state of Pennsylvania, where slavery was illegal. He spent 27 hours inside, and no one paid much attention to the label: This Side Up, With Care. Amazingly, he survived, and Underground Railroad workers unpacked He