Bookverdict.com

Gr 5 Up—Expanding his focus from the close-up view of history applied in previous books, Nelson uses his formidable skills for the larger landscape: the black experience in America from slavery to the presidency. Like most surveys, the book is organized by struggles and wars; unlike traditional overviews, the facts are filtered through the eyes of a black woman with attitude to spare. This invented narrator, whose "Pap" was kidnapped as a child in Africa and whose brothers fought in World War II, does not suffer fools. Her colloquia...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

"Most folks my age and complexion don't speak much about the past," begins the unnamed narrator of this graceful and personalized overview of African American history. But this doesn't stop her from telling the story in a sweeping account that succinctly covers history from the Colonial era to the present day. The aged woman tells of her own grandfather, who was captured in Africa at age six and illegally sold into slavery in 1850. From Pap's story, we get a sense of what it was like to be a slave, a Union soldier, a sharecropper during Reconstruction, and a Buffalo soldier in Oklahoma; eventually he heads ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

The unnamed narrator of this graceful and personalized overview of African American history provides a sweeping account that covers history...Log In or Sign Up to Read More