# Trouble Don't Last

**Author:** Shelley Pearsall
**Grade range:** Grades 5–8
**First published:** 2008
**Page count:** 256
**ISBN-13:** `9780307548306`
**ISBN-10:** `0307548309`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/trouble-dont-last
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Eleven-year-old Samuel was born as Master Hackler’s slave, and working the Kentucky farm is the only life he’s ever known—until one dark night in 1859, that is. With no warning, cranky old Harrison, a fellow slave, pulls Samuel from his bed and, together, they run. The journey north seems much more frightening than Master Hackler ever was, and Samuel’s not sure what freedom means aside from running, hiding, and starving. But as they move from one refuge to the next on the Underground Railroad, Samuel uncovers the secret of his own past—and future. And old Harrison begins to see past a whole lifetime of hurt to the promise of a new life—and a poignant reunion— in Canada. In a heartbreaking and hopeful first novel, Shelley Pearsall tells a suspenseful, emotionally charged story of freedom an

## Where this book is assigned

### Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

- **recommended** · 5th grade — [source: Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction winners, via Wikipedia — 2003 Scott O'Dell Award](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_O%27Dell_Award_for_Historical_Fiction)
- **recommended** · 6th grade — [source: Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction winners, via Wikipedia — 2003 Scott O'Dell Award](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_O%27Dell_Award_for_Historical_Fiction)
- **recommended** · 7th grade — [source: Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction winners, via Wikipedia — 2003 Scott O'Dell Award](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_O%27Dell_Award_for_Historical_Fiction)
- **recommended** · 8th grade — [source: Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction winners, via Wikipedia — 2003 Scott O'Dell Award](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_O%27Dell_Award_for_Historical_Fiction)

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