Skip to content
HummingReadStories that grow with you.
Yellow bandReady now · Open and print today

The Midnight Ride

From Fifty Famous People, by James Baldwin

This story is from Fifty Famous People, a collection by American author James Baldwin published in the early 1900s. It retells the famous midnight ride of Paul Revere in April 1775, when he warned colonial farmers that British soldiers were marching to seize their gunpowder. The ride helped spark the Revolutionary War, America's fight for independence. This text reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised. Baldwin's retelling introduces young readers to a moment of courage that changed history.

Band
Yellow · Emerging readersTypical starting range: ages 6–8
Length
medium · about 513 words in 5 sections · 4 pictures
Source
Fifty Famous People: A Book of Short Stories, James Baldwin
First published
see the About page in the reader
Regions
Canada · United States

Included formats

  • · Web reader and PDF
  • · EPUB for e-readers
  • · Home-print sheet
  • · Folded booklet
  • · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
  • · Worksheet
  • · Quick Check (8 questions) with answer key
  • · Read-aloud script
  • · Colouring page
  • · Teacher’s Edition (members)

Lesson at a glance

Reading
about 9 minutes at this band
Pause questions
2
Words to Know
6
Quick Check
8 questions, with the answer key
Let’s Talk
3 questions for afterwards
Worksheet
questions, an activity and a drawing prompt

About 35 minutes with one story, all of it.

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.

Report a concern about this reader · What’s in a HummingRead reader

The same story

Other bands of this story

This story is ready now at the Yellow band only. Other bands can be made to order for members after launch.