Rating: 
Summary: DON"T WASTE YOUR TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: This was one of the worst books I have ever read!The information is great, but the structure of the book could have been much better. The style is very convoluted, and it seems as though the information could have been conveyed in a much more straightfoward manner. If you're really interested in quilts, then go ahead and read it. Otherwise, spend your money on something else.
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite what I was expecting....
Review: This book was more of a narrative on African history, and how it fits in with the quilts, instead of focusing on the quilts themselves, as the title would have you believe. I would have appreciated more stories of the Civil War and the underground railroad, and less of African "codes", etc. If you just want to know about the quilts and aren't interested in African history and religious codes, etc, this isn't what you're looking for!
Rating:
Summary: Should be catagorized under "fiction"
Review: I read this book as part of a quilting project, having been warned that it was "poorly edited." Well, editing is the least of this book's problems. "Hidden in Plain View" is an exercise in wishful thinking and comes off sounding exactly like an answer to an essay question on a final English Literature exam by a student who hasn't even read the novel -- in other words: made up and streched as long as possible. I would go so far as to call into question the existence of the author's source, or at least the veracity of Tobin's recounting of their meetings. The only helpful parts of the book are the large sections quoted from other sources (though not the parts that read as cut-and-pastes from encyclopedia.com). If you are looking for evidence that quilts were a significant part of the Underground Railroad, I wish you the best of luck because this book certainly doesn't include any. In fact, the book makes the idea of a "secret quilting code" sound even more preposterous.
Rating:
Summary: disappointing experience
Review: I was told of this book by a fellow quilter who had not actually read it, but had heard the hype. It sounded exciting, and I, too, fell victim to the misleading advertisement. The premise is indeed exciting, and deserves serious research. But the book itself is poorly organized and badly written, sounding much like a first draft of a college term theme. Regarding the role quilts played for escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad, the conclusions reached by the author are not explained in a straightforward manner; the research behind these conclusions appears haphazard and scanty. I would not recommend this particular book for reading or for research, but it is my earnest hope that the premise behind it is someday investigated seriously, as it deserves.
Rating: 
Summary: Untrue info in this book
Review: I was using some of the info in this book for a history project. I resurched quilts used in the Underground Railroad, and I found that this is the ONLY source that mentions it being used. I found two which say that they we're used. It's a good book, but not very reliable historicly.
Rating:
Summary: excellent work based on oral history
Review: Although documentation is incomplete, Tobin et al do a wonderful job based on sketchy oral history of slaves. Considering the necessity of secrecy within the underground railroad, the authors weaves a wonderful story of courage and women's art in quiltmaking. I recommend this and other books about the underground railroad and quiltmaking as consciousness raising for children in the U.S.
Rating:
Summary: Hidden in Plain View - The Secret Story of Quilts and the Un
Review: Although this story line seemed very interesting to me, the book is a very S L O W read. Very dissappointing.
Rating:
Summary: ditto a reader from Germany
Review: The reviewer from Germany who suggests "no stars" for this book makes a very valid case. The Underground Railroad was a very important part of our history, and the people involved in it (particularly the slaves, who were risking so much) were undoubtedly courageous, and deserve to be remembered. It is a shame that more is not known about them. But since it was officially an illegal activity, it is not surprising that much of this history has indeed been lost. Searching for it is a noble undertaking, but presenting unproven theories and treating them as if they are historic facts is a disservice to our posterity. Many of the authors' conjectures even fail the "common sense" test. One also wonders, why present (on page 62) the theory of the the derivation of the term "Underground Railroad" advanced by 19th-century historian Wilbur Siebert, without mentioning a different theory presented in the autobiography of Levi Coffin, (an actual participant in the Underground Railroad acknowledged elsewhere in the book)? Neither of the co-authors seems to be an historian (Tobin is an ART historian, a very different thing). It shows. By the way, instead of three forwards and a timeline, I would have appreciated an index.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: The story is pleasant. It is just that a pleasant story. It does not satisfy the need for solid research based on primary materials. The authors state the lack of written material available, but the assumptions they make are many and gross fabrication of story is obvious to the critical reader. To call this a history of Afro-American quilts and the Underground Railroad is a gross overstatement.
Rating:
Summary: Ditto: "Can I Have My Money Back?"
Review: Did any editor actually look at this book? It reads like a random collection of oblique observations and research notes -- suggesting possibly tantalizing lines of inquiry but failing to develop any of them in any logical fashion, skipping through and about topics and events with no clear connections between them, and posing questions of questionable relevance frequently answered only by quotations from the works other scholars of frequently dubious relevance to the questions themselves. Unfortunately, the book fails to live up to the promises made in the 3 -- count 'em -- 3 effusive forewords. And, at page 88, it will be "site records" -- not "cite records" -- of the Frederick Douglass Home.
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