Welcome to Litsy!

At my school, 8th grade reads Lester‘s “Day of Tears” so I was excited to find this nonfiction account by Lester. He took excerpts of 19th century slave narratives & the Federal Writers Project interviews of former slaves from the 1930s & made a narrative that‘s kid friendly. It‘s well done & I plan on using some of those excerpts in class but I thought his commentary in between interviews was problematic, especially regarding native peoples.

This book have been on my shelf for awhile. In my mind I would categorize this book as middle grade. The author, Julius Lester, spent weeks reading slave narratives taken down by the Federal Writers‘ Project. He combined excerpts to give the reader a full understanding of what slavery was like based on the actual words of slaves. I‘m going to pass this book onto my kids. It‘s a good book for them to read to better understand slavery in America.