Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing "scholarship"
Review: I am interested in both quilts and the underground railroad. However, this book struck me as speculation and heresay rather than a well-researched record of historical fact. While historical fact on this subject may be difficult to come by, I found myself knowing no more after reading this book than I did before I read it. I'm afraid the authors set out to write a book based on historical fact and when there were no facts to be found, they wrote it anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Questionable
Review: I bought this book at an historic site in Savannah, GA and assumed it was factual. The deeper I read into the book, the more I questioned what the authors wanted me to believe. There was a lot of supposition and I began to wonder if they were 'reaching' to explain something they desperately wanted to believe. I found the book difficult to read (the references made sticking to the storyline challenging). This story is based on an oral history and I think that is the major redeeming quality of this book - I do believe in the importance of ancestral history, however, it needs to be substantiated in some fashion. I bought this book thinking it was fact, and I finished the book wondering how much of this was surmised. A very slow read.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Worth Reading
Review: If this book were a pile of gravel with a few gold nuggets included, the gravel would be plentiful, and the nuggets would be rare. Messages, such as "go North", and "don't travel in a straight line" don't seem sensitive enough to warrant encryption into a troublesome code such as a quilt pattern. Don't bother reading this.
Rating:
Summary: Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Unde
Review: This story explains how escaping slaves used quilt designs, along with music and stories, as instructional devices for themselves and others on the Underground Railroad. The story began as a result of information received from an African American quilter named Ozella McDaniel Williams in South Carolina, which Ozella had received through her family. It tells how certain designs have certain meanings, telling the slaves when they should be ready to leave, what trails they were to take, and what they were ultimately to do once they were on free land. Interspersed throughout this new information, are references to old spirituals, groups, and individuals who helped the slaves escape to the North. When I first began to read the book, I was actually quite interested, as I had never heard the story before. However, it became somewhat of a struggle to finish; at times the book seemed repetitive, or I got the feeling that the authors had to stretch their imaginations too much to get their desired end-result. Despite this change of heart, I did find the story quite enjoyable. The existence of such a code may be hard to swallow for historians and others in our society, but the possibility of its truth make the story worth reading.
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