A first-person narrative tells the story of one family's journey via passenger train from North Carolina to New York City as part of the Great Migration. Young Ruth Ellen travels with her parents in the "colored car," watching out the window as they pass fields of migrant laborers living the sort of lives she and her family are escaping. As she travels, she also reads a book her teacher gave her just before they left, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Cline-Ransome's skillful writing draws subtle comparisons between Douglass's escape on the Underground Railroad and the journey north taken by African Americans generations later. Ruth Ellen's observations and the conductor's announcement of stops along the way charts the family's progress to a place that will offer only a little bit more freedom but much more opportunity for the family. The watercolor illustrations give a strong sense of the time period, as well as the characters of the people on the train in this distinctive look at the Great Migration. (Ages 6-9)