Buried Lives by Carla Killough McClafferty - ADVISABLE

Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington’s Mount Vernon by Carla Killough McClafferty, 132 pages.  NON-FICTION.  Holiday House, 2018.  $25.

BUYING ADVISORY:  MS, HS - ADVISABLE

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

Using meticulous research, McClafferty pieces together the lives of a few of the slaves owned by the Washington family at their Mount Vernon estate.  The last part of the book documents the efforts to find the sites of the graves in the Mount Vernon slave cemetery.  Whether they will ever be able to identify the actual person within the grave remains to be seen.

McClafferty’s book is an important addition for a school library.  It is an excellent look at authentic historical research – the kind of research that requires more than a Google search.  It also places the lives of African American slaves within their historical context as property – showing why we know so little about their lives.  And it also recreates the painstaking work that goes into an archaeological dig – not just for dinosaur bones!  Fascinating to me – and fascinating to students in the right hands.

Cindy, Middle School Librarian, MLS