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simsbrarian's review against another edition
2.0
At the age of 8, Egyptian girl Shyima Hall was sold by her parents into slavery. Shyima had been living as one of eleven children in poverty with her family but knew love and happiness. As a modern day slave she toils for her rich captors in Egypt before eventually being dragged to the United States. Finally, in 2001 (after 5+ years of domestic slavery) Shyima is rescued. She spends the rest of the story (from page 77 and the rescue) describing her attempts to find a good foster family, learn English, become American, and work towards becoming an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent (to aid in preventing such slavery).
Anything you didn’t like about it? While the story content is good (Shyima's life is tragic and amazing) the storytelling was very poor. The story did all it could to distance the reader from connecting with the young Shyima, text was very general with very little in the way of even a "This was an normal day" moments and instead lots of "I didn't like The Mom because she yelled at me all the time" so it became repetitive. At times there are what definitely feel like editorial insertions, lines which so clearly break the narrative memoir voice to make a point on faith or patriarchy or the slave trade. It reads very disjointedly and is a shame because it distracts from what could be a really compelling introduction to the concept of this horrible current reality and leaves the reader instead with a rather dry and simplistic recounting of the basics that this young woman could remember of her time as a slave at such a young age.
To whom would you recommend this book? Mostly the text reads at a rather low level so it could be easy for younger readers and is free of much detail so could be a good way to get such a terrible topic/story into the hands of someone younger who is curious about slavery which does still exist in the world.
FTC Disclosure: The Publisher provided me with a copy of this book to provide an honest review. No goody bags, sponsorship, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
Anything you didn’t like about it? While the story content is good (Shyima's life is tragic and amazing) the storytelling was very poor. The story did all it could to distance the reader from connecting with the young Shyima, text was very general with very little in the way of even a "This was an normal day" moments and instead lots of "I didn't like The Mom because she yelled at me all the time" so it became repetitive. At times there are what definitely feel like editorial insertions, lines which so clearly break the narrative memoir voice to make a point on faith or patriarchy or the slave trade. It reads very disjointedly and is a shame because it distracts from what could be a really compelling introduction to the concept of this horrible current reality and leaves the reader instead with a rather dry and simplistic recounting of the basics that this young woman could remember of her time as a slave at such a young age.
To whom would you recommend this book? Mostly the text reads at a rather low level so it could be easy for younger readers and is free of much detail so could be a good way to get such a terrible topic/story into the hands of someone younger who is curious about slavery which does still exist in the world.
FTC Disclosure: The Publisher provided me with a copy of this book to provide an honest review. No goody bags, sponsorship, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
ranaelizabeth's review against another edition
3.0
If I was a high-school social studies teacher, I would totally make my kids read this. But for me, at thirty-something, it was just too young.
mak99's review against another edition
3.0
I picked up this book because it reminded me of a story I'd read in Reader's Digest about a girl who was brought from Egypt as a slave. After I began reading, I was almost sure that this book was written by that same girl. My theory was confirmed when Hall mentions that she did an interview with Reader's Digest many years ago. A very good story that will stay with you long after you're done reading.
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