Reviews by Tag: slavery

Teen Review
Beloved

Beloved

By Toni Morrison
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by
Anonymous
Dec 12, 2023

Summary: Beloved tells the story of Sethe, an escaped slave, living with her daughter, Denver. The novel starts with the runaway of Sethe’s two sons, Howard and Buglar, and the death of her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs. These events open the theme of the story and introduce the malevolent baby ghost who haunts 124. As more characters show, the novel begins to entwine past and present, revealing flashbacks of Sethe’s past in slavery. With the appearance of Paul D, the main conflict begins to unfold.

Teen Review
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself book cover

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself

By Frederick Douglas
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by
Anonymous
Sep 20, 2023

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself by Frederick Douglass is a book about personal experience based on being enslaved. He writes this book on how he and other slaves were traded, and how he overcomes his situations. He then works to help other slaves and speak out to abolish slavery. 

Teen Review
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing

By Yaa Gyasi
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by
Anonymous
Apr 5, 2022

The novel Homegoing, is an eye-opening story that depicts an unflinching portrayal of the slave trade exports in the 18th century and its contrasting impacts down the generations. Gyasi conveys these struggles by sharing the stories of two half-sisters (and their descendants), Effia and Esi, one who married a wealthy English man and the other who was sold into slavery, representing how slavery destroyed one line of the family while it cursed the other.

Teen Review

Unbound

By Ann E. Burg

Rated by
Olivia from Leawood Pioneer Library YAAC
Apr 20, 2017

When Grace is called to work in the Big House from the slave cabins, her family warns her to keep her eyes down and watch her mouth, or there could be disastrous consequences. But she makes a grave mistake, and she and her family must flee deep into the dangerous woods, braving slave patrollers, deadly wild animals, and the uncertainty that they will ever be free.

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