A review by iffer
The Middle Passage: White Ships/ Black Cargo by Tom Feelings, John Henrik Clarke

5.0

This book, in which there are no words, save the author's powerful foreward about his journey to slavery and back to create this novel, is set of black and white drawings of the capture and transport of black Africans to the Americas for use as slaves. This book is, by far, not a picture book in the sense that you share it with small children. Rather, it utilizes pictures to convey the horror and dehumanizing nature of slavery. I think that this book would be especially good to incorporate in middle school or high school classrooms to really put slavery in perspective. Too often, we study events in history, and are intellectually aware of their occurrence, but lack a true understanding and human emotional connection to the events. Because of this, we relegate appalling historical events to the past, fail to tie them to present social injustices, and cease to be vigilant about our actions and the actions of present society.