Julius Lester (Author), Jerry Pinkney (Illustrator)

From Booklist

Gr. 4-7. From his 1968 Newbery Honor Book, To Be a Slave (1968), to Day of Tears (2005), Lester has brought the African American slavery experience to young readers. Complemented by Pinkney's powerful illustrations, this picture book presents an unflinching account of the brutal history and of personal courage, told with a lyrical magic realism that draws on slave legend and the dream of freedom. Lester begins with the horror of the plantation, where the workers must watch the white master whip a young runaway. The Old African, the slave Jaja, never speaks, but he has the spiritual power to enter the minds of other people, and he can take away the runaway's pain. He remembers the terrifying attacks on his Ibo people in Africa, the white traders, and the journey across the ocean, when he saw his wife stripped naked and then leap overboard. Now Jaja leads the plantations slaves back to the ocean, where they walk into the water to freedom and reunion. The stirring illustrations, glowing with color and swirling with action, beautifully depict the dramatic escape fantasy (which is based on legend), but they never deny the horror; they show the public whipping and the crowded ship's hold, so like the bunks in Auschwitz. The triumph over oppression is in the unforgettable words and pictures of individual people--and the connections between them. Hazel Rochman
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