A review by typesetjez
Day of Tears by Julius Lester

5.0

This book is fantastic and well suited to juvenile, young adult, or even adult audiences, for pleasure reading or for education. All too often, history focuses on the events of slavery or the Civil War and not enough on the lives of the people involved. This book gives insight into the lives of slaves, slave owners, slave sellers, and underground railroad affiliates and gives a wide variety of stories within each of these categories. There are slaves who want nothing more than to escape, slaves who have internalized slavery and view it as a positive, slave owners who think of slaves as property, and slave owners who treat slaves like family. The author has been careful to choose a family that is historically split between support for and against slavery and backs up all of the events with historical notes at the end of the book. Since this is a novel in dialogue, the characters are immediately apparent and understood, giving a more emotional and personal look at this period of history than any textbook could, which is why I feel this book could work well in the classroom, possibly even read aloud. This book would also lend itself very easily to dramatic readings or a play adaptation.

Note: fans of 12 Years a Slave should try this book!