Jim Limber Davis: A Black Orphan in the Confederate White House
Jim Limber Davis was rescued from an abusive guardian by Varina Davis when he was only five years old. Later, Union soldiers kidnapped Jim Limber and spread cruel rumors that he was Jefferson Davis's slave. This true story provides a glimpse of how Jim was accepted as one of the Davis’s children and reveals their family's love and compassion for him.
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\ School Library JournalGr 2-4\ This is a heartbreaking tale of a free black orphan boy adopted by Jefferson Davis and his family. After Davis was arrested by the Union army, Jim was kidnapped and taken to the North as an unwilling example of the cruelties meted out by Davis to the boy. One illustration shows Jim exposing his welt-covered back to shocked Northerners. In reality, his scars were not from the beatings suffered under the Confederate president, but from the boy's uncle. Pittman does a terrific job of capturing readers' interest, but there are concerns about this title. First of all, thoughts and feelings, which cannot be known, are ubiquitous. When Jim's adopted brother dies after a fall, the text reads, "These were sad days for the Davis family, but especially for Jim because he loved Joe so much." Surely Mrs. Davis would have had her own particular, undeniable, maternal grief. There is so much speculation and filling in of unknown blanks. Large, average-quality illustrations evoke the author's sympathetic views toward the Davis family and the Confederacy. Without source notes, readers should view this story as fiction, not biography. The mystery of what happened to young Jim remains unknown. Davis searched for him after the Civil War, but never found him. Despite the above concerns, it is a worthy tale for young students.\ —Anne Chapman CallaghanCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.\ \ \
