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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
Mark Twain Award nominee 2018-19. Novel in verse about a girl born into slavery who moves into the "big house" to help in the kitchen. Written in vernacular, but it was easy to get used to the language. A quick and moving read.
Beautiful, short, and a page turner! I loved all the characters so much!
3.5 stars
This novel in verse tells the story of Grace, a slave. She lives in the slave cabins with her Mama but is being sent up to the Big House to work. She sees the cruelty of the white Master and Missus and wonders how people can be so mean to each other. One thing leads to another and Grace and her family decide that they need to escape before things get any worse. They go the the Great Dismal Swamp - a real place that history books tell little about. Danger abounds.
This poetry format forces the author to make each word count - and Burg does. Words are carefully selected and nuanced, creating vivid pictures in the mind of the reader.
This novel in verse tells the story of Grace, a slave. She lives in the slave cabins with her Mama but is being sent up to the Big House to work. She sees the cruelty of the white Master and Missus and wonders how people can be so mean to each other. One thing leads to another and Grace and her family decide that they need to escape before things get any worse. They go the the Great Dismal Swamp - a real place that history books tell little about. Danger abounds.
This poetry format forces the author to make each word count - and Burg does. Words are carefully selected and nuanced, creating vivid pictures in the mind of the reader.
I really liked this one. Normally dialects, or improperly written English, drives me nuts, but Berg does it in a way that doesn't bother me. I should have known this, because I love Berg's other books.
Grace is being sent to the Big House to work. She's told to leave her questions about rightiness in her mind: why do some people get to eat more but work less? why do some people own others? what's happening in the smokehouse? When she accidentally says one thing too far, she and her family go on the run.
I had no idea that there were communities of ex-slaves living in the swamps in western Virginia. I assumed they all went north. Berg has written a beautiful story that will teach children about that. She also shows the way slavery dehumanizes people, but never in a way that's too graphic for her middle grade audience.
Grace is being sent to the Big House to work. She's told to leave her questions about rightiness in her mind: why do some people get to eat more but work less? why do some people own others? what's happening in the smokehouse? When she accidentally says one thing too far, she and her family go on the run.
I had no idea that there were communities of ex-slaves living in the swamps in western Virginia. I assumed they all went north. Berg has written a beautiful story that will teach children about that. She also shows the way slavery dehumanizes people, but never in a way that's too graphic for her middle grade audience.
very grateful to learn about the great dismal swamp through this captivating narrative
dnf at page 76 because i'm not going to read a book about a slave written by a fucking white woman. there were already historical inaccuracies/revisionist histories and tropes about Black slaves and slavery in the united states that are harmful and disingenuous. i don't fucking care what white people have to say about an ongoing historical trauma that their ancestors inflicted upon an entire race and continue to do so.
I highly recommend (and prefer) the audiobook of this middle grade novel written in verse.
Plot
Pale skinned, blue eyed Grace doesn't look like the other slaves, her mama in particular. She wants beautiful skin and features like her community. But, because of her pale skin [and possible patronage], she is taken to the big house to work in the kitchen. She learns not to question anything while missing her mother and brothers terribly. When Grace oversteps, she learns that the Master and Missus are going to get rid of a slave--but whom? Grace is scared, and she and her family run, seeking shelter in the swamp nearby.
Review
This is not an "own voices" story, but the author has an interest in slavery and black culture, as shown by the awards this has won and Serafina's Promise. In the audiobook it is not apparent that the book is told in verse--it just sounds like a regular story. The audiobook narrator does voices for the black characters, but in particular with the Missus she has no accent despite the time and Southern setting. That just always bothers me... She did also narrate The Help which had similar issues but with the author's writing of the dialogue.
Sigh, I just want some black kid adventures that I could have enjoyed as a kid, but there's nothing particularly different or unique from any other slave story [aside from the swamp escape].
Pale skinned, blue eyed Grace doesn't look like the other slaves, her mama in particular. She wants beautiful skin and features like her community. But, because of her pale skin [and possible patronage], she is taken to the big house to work in the kitchen. She learns not to question anything while missing her mother and brothers terribly. When Grace oversteps, she learns that the Master and Missus are going to get rid of a slave--but whom? Grace is scared, and she and her family run, seeking shelter in the swamp nearby.
Review
This is not an "own voices" story, but the author has an interest in slavery and black culture, as shown by the awards this has won and Serafina's Promise. In the audiobook it is not apparent that the book is told in verse--it just sounds like a regular story. The audiobook narrator does voices for the black characters, but in particular with the Missus she has no accent despite the time and Southern setting. That just always bothers me... She did also narrate The Help which had similar issues but with the author's writing of the dialogue.
Sigh, I just want some black kid adventures that I could have enjoyed as a kid, but there's nothing particularly different or unique from any other slave story [aside from the swamp escape].
This novel-in-verse tells the story of Grace, a girl living as a slave on a plantation. Grace is selected to start work in the Big House, leaving her mother, stepfather and two little brothers behind. Grace is warned by everyone that she has to keep her eyes down and her opinions to herself, not even allowing them to show on her face or in her eyes. But Grace realizes that things are very unfair on the plantation where some people work in the fields from dawn to dusk and white people aren’t even expected to dress themselves. Grace finds it impossible to keep these thoughts deep inside her, and puts her family at risk. So they all flee to try to find freedom, heading deep into the Great Dismal Swamp where the men and dogs hunting them can’t track them.
The author of All the Broken Pieces returns with another verse novel just as stunning as her previous ones. Here she shares a piece of history that many don’t know about, slaves who found freedom by living deep in the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina. The entire book is fraught with dangers from whippings and punishments as a slave to the dangers of reaching possible freedom to the real dangers of the swamp itself.
Told in verse, the poems are in Grace’s voice and it rings with authenticity but also a righteous anger at what is being done to people because of the color of their skin. Readers hearing Grace’s voice will understand her situation and spirit on a deep level. That is the power of poetry, to cut past exposition right to the heart of the person speaking. Burg does this with a simplicity that adds to that power, cutting right through to the core.
Beautifully written, this powerful story tells of the importance of freedom for all people. Appropriate for ages 9-12.
The author of All the Broken Pieces returns with another verse novel just as stunning as her previous ones. Here she shares a piece of history that many don’t know about, slaves who found freedom by living deep in the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina. The entire book is fraught with dangers from whippings and punishments as a slave to the dangers of reaching possible freedom to the real dangers of the swamp itself.
Told in verse, the poems are in Grace’s voice and it rings with authenticity but also a righteous anger at what is being done to people because of the color of their skin. Readers hearing Grace’s voice will understand her situation and spirit on a deep level. That is the power of poetry, to cut past exposition right to the heart of the person speaking. Burg does this with a simplicity that adds to that power, cutting right through to the core.
Beautifully written, this powerful story tells of the importance of freedom for all people. Appropriate for ages 9-12.