Language: G (0 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: PG-13 (slavery, descriptions of hunting down escaped slaves, enslaved women giving birth to mixed race children); Violence: PG-13 (enslaved peoples bought & sold, repeated whippings and beatings)
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Carole and Jeffery Weatherford tell the stories of their enslaved ancestors through poetry and art. The poems' voices range from people in the author’s direct lineage, to luminaries like Harriet Tubman and Fredrick Douglass, to the people (slavers and landowners) and objects (e.g. the slave ships and plantation homes) directly involved in perpetuating the enslavement of human beings for hundreds of years and throughout generations.
Weatherford writes an incredibly powerful account of slavery in America, through the exploration of one family tree over time. The poems trace the roots of the family from the first free Black settlements after the Civil War, through the fields of the Lloyd plantation in Maryland, all the way to the shores of Africa. The scratch art is spare but impactful. I could see this book being an excellent supplemental material for American History lessons with lots of potential connection to literature and art.
Reviewer: Kiera Beddes, #bookswithbeddes
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