title: Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life
author:  Beverly Lowry 
description: No escaped slave's story grips the American imagination as deeply as Harriet Tubman's, with the melodrama and near mythic grandeur of her frequent returns to slave territory to rescue her family members and scores of others. Since Tubman (18221913) never learned to read or write, her story comes second or third hand, offering researchers a challenge and creative nonfiction writers an opportunity. Lowry, a novelist and author of a re-creation of the life of the first African-American woman entrepreneur, Madame C.J. Walker (<i>Her Dream of Dreams</i>, 2003), "reimagined" Tubman's life in four parts: her childhood as a field slave called Araminta; her marriage, escape and early "rescues" when she was known as Harriet; her legendary Underground Railroad years when she was called Moses; the Civil War years when she was scout and courier for the Union army (John Brown dubbed her "the General"); and her postbellum work with emancipated slaves. Lowry carries the reader through the milestones without slipping into a morass of detail, through legal thickets (largely created by treating persons as property) and Tubman's encounters with many abolitionists without meandering. Tubman's life invites imagining, and Lowry's reader-friendly book, which "does not pretend to be a work of intense scholarship," presents her story with a novelist's sense of pace, suspense and speculation. <i>(Apr. 17)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  Man In A Million
  
  Roberta Leigh
  
  CHAPTER ONE
  
  'I suppose you know what you're doing,' said the Dean, looking at the tall,
  grave-faced girl sitting on the other side of his desk. 'I'm all for my staff
  taking a year's sabbatical—but the sort of work you are planning to do....'
  The large head wagged from side to side. ‘The film world is so different from
  the one to which you are accustomed.'
  
  Harriet Roberts kept a smile on her face as she stared back at the Dean. He
  was saying everything her Mends had already told her. It was only her
  students—that amorphous band of young enthusiasts—who had urged her not to
  miss this wonderful opportunity.
  
  'I agree with you that the film world is different,' she murmured, 'but it's a
  world in which I grew up.'
  
  'Ah, yes, your father.' The Dean cleared his throat. 'I was sorry to learn of
  his death. It was very sudden, I believe?'
  
  Harriet nodded, still unable-after three months —to talk about her father; not
  only because she was takin