A review by katiebowers
Unbound: A Novel in Verse by Ann E. Burg

5.0

This is spoiler-y, so skip if you prefer: this is a quick, lyrical read about an enslaved family’s run to freedom with a happy ending and no deaths. Grace is 9-years-old when she overhears her enslaver’s plans to sell her mother and young brothers, prompting her to push her family out the door to freedom. They land in a vast swamp in an area in Virginia and North Carolina that is home to many Indigenous peoples and maroons - formerly enslaved Black people - who live their lives totally separate from the society that tried to enslave and kill them. It’s not a group of people that we learn much about in literature or history in the U.S., and this felt like a very intriguing introduction that could pique interest in learning more for some young readers (and adult readers, too, because I feel the need to go down a wiki rabbit hole on some of the events in the book!). I don’t think I’ve read a freedom story before that wasn’t a fleeing-for-the-North narrative, and I’m now really interested to read more.