A review by lauraxbakker
Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue by Julius Lester

5.0

I remember one time when Sarah, my oldest girl, told me that in one of her books it said a picture is worth a thousand words. I told her whoever wrote that didn't know very much. When I think back on slavery and all what happened that day when God cried, couldn't no picture make you feel what it was like. Maybe a picture could show you the train, but that picture couldn't make you feel how thick and heavy the air was and how hard it was to breathe. That picture couldn't make you feel how our skin was covered with a sweat that was like grease that had been used too many times to fry a chicken in. If you had a picture of the dining room that morning you would see a long table covered with a white cloth, the china place settings and silverware and Master, the slave-seller, and Master's two daughters seated around the table. You'd see me and Mama going back and forth bringing in the breakfast of grits, fried apples, pancakes, syrup, sausage, and coffee. But you wouldn't smell the odors from everyone's bodies. That picture wouldn't let you smell the mold coming from the walls. You'd see me and mama in that picture and we would look like we wasn't feeling a thing.
That picture would be a lie.

This book is absolutely incredible! This book is an historical recreation, which is I think a new (sub)genre for me. This book was absolutely incredible. The story itself, is heartbreaking and the way that it has been written is beautiful. The fact that it has been written as dialogue was easy to read, which in my opinion was great because the subject was so intense.

Julius Lester made this such a great, great book and the way he used the words to describe everything absolutely blew me away.