Customer Reviews

To Be A Slave (Puffin Modern Classics)

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I've been reading about slavery for many years and this book is one of the greatest for young readers. Lester is able to convey what these people were feeling and thinking at the time and after slavery quite well. This is a great read!

Like "Island Girl" said, "...It moves you, it angers you, it amazes you..."

This is exactly how I feel about this book. It also greatly saddens me, makes me overwhelmingly thankful and makes me passionately teach and warm my children about the cruelty and evil that comes from forgetting or refusing to believe the intrinsic value every human being has before God and the respect each one deserves from one another.

Get this book, read it. It reads so fast and is an absolute page turner. But get ready. If you really, honestly read it, you're going to experience a whole range of emotions. Anger, sadness, thankfulness and passion to share what you read with others.

I honestly don't like it when people say, "Every ____ should read this book" But I have to admit, I would wholeheartedly say that about this book. Every American should read this book. I remember learning about slavery in US history during school, but not like this. We need to go back, often, and see the cruelties of one group of people toward others (Cain and Able, Jews, Canaanites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Nazis etc) so we can learn and not repeat these mistakes.

This book also begs many critical questions such as:
1. How could an entire race of people think it was acceptable to treat, by and large, an entire other race of people so inhumanely?
2. How does one act when put in a situation where one is told to do something evil and if they disobey, they know they will simply be put to death and the next able bodied person will be made to do the same?
3. What one thing (many things?) is it that cuts across the horrors of US slavery, the travesty that was Nazi Europe, the evil of Sudan and on and on and on, and teaches us what is wrong and right and why these things happened?

Many more questions as well. All of these questions are answered, by the way, in the 66 books of the Christian Bible.
Highly recommend this one to you. Especially if you're a young Dad like me, trying to teach and train your children.

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Update: Finished today 3/9/10 and was very disappointed by how the book ended. Left much to be desired by the reader. No final commentary from Lester. Very negative and bitter. I understand that the world is still much plagued by prejudice, oppression and racism and it will always be like that until the Prince of Peace returns. But the author could have brought things to a better summary and at least proposed some thought provoking questions for his readers to walk away with.

Julius Lester has brought to life the plight and resilience of those who endured slavery by sharing their actual life stories in their own words. His work has had a deep emotional impact on me both personally and professionally, and I have mentioned this book in the human behavior courses that I teach at the college level. I am hopeful that people can learn from the real-life inhumanity written about in this book to prevent future oppression and injustice.

Johanna Slivinske, MSW

Author of Storytelling and Other Activities for Children in Therapy


Storytelling and Other Activities for Children in Therapy
Storytelling and Other Activities for Children in Therapy

I loved it. It is important to undestand the history of slavery, and how it adversly affected generations. Easy reading and important to African Americans.

Sheesh, this book has been sitting on my shelf forever and I just got around to reading it last weekend. I don't know what I was expecting...maybe more pro-black stuff. The author however takes literal letters from actual slaves and compiles them in this little book. I'm telling you....reading so many personal accounts from different slave individuals takes it to a whole new level. It moves you, it angers you, it amazes you. It is like opening a chest or time capsule with old faded letters and reading the words and the horrors that came straight from their mouths. A nice little addition to any library that gives clear insight into the depth of human cruelty and equally human survival. It is something you would flip through time and time again.