Ebony Sea [Hardcover]

Irene Smalls (Author), Jon Lockard (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

A story based on accounts of an incident in South Carolina of Igbo resistance to slavery.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-6?Most tales about slavery in this country tell of narrow escapes to freedom or of the bravery of individual leaders. Few of those aimed at youngsters are as chilling or as poignant as this one. Small's lyrical narrative has a mythological feel to it; it captures the utter despair that must have gripped Africans when, upon landing on American soil, they recognized that they were doomed to a life of drudgery and toil. Some accepted life in chains, but others chose death. Smalls tells the story of a group of Ebos who drowned themselves rather than live in captivity. Lockard's bold paintings, depicting strong brown bodies emerging from the slave ship and then trudging slowly and relentlessly, with dignity, to their watery graves, are both beautiful and haunting. This book is important because it informs readers about the kinds of terrible choices slaves had to make and shows that no one choice was any better or braver than another.?Carol Jones Collins, Montclair Kimberley Academy, NJ
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover
• Publisher: Borders Pr; 1st edition (February 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068100679X
• ISBN-13: 978-0681006799
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,599,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A choice of two evils, May 30, 2000

By 

Linda Marchant (Charleston South Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ebony Sea (Hardcover)

Can you imagine being taken away from your mother father, sisters and brothers in the middle of the night by a stranger? Yesterday, you were free to run ,play ,jump ,laugh and sing with your friends, but now you are shackled by your arms and ankles. You cannot move on your own because you are chained to another child and that child is chained to another child. All of a sudden you are on this boat with hundreds of other men, women, children, and babies,riding endlessly in the dark of the night. You look up and you see someone weak, someone in pain, someone about to die. You are afraid but you cannot run you cannot hide. You hear voices of men and women screaming at the top of their lungs. These men and women who have just been beaten. Suddenly the ship comes to a stop. The men who forced everyone on the boat are now resting, resting from the long journey. They are not paying attention to the hundreds of slaves who they threw crumbs to, who they beat continuously on this passage this long dark middle passage. One by one mothers and fathers start walking and staring straight into the sea. Children are following them. It's as if they are all in a trance. They walk like tired soldiers into the water. One by one they go farther and farther away until you can't see them anymore. The blue sea becomes the sea full of ebony people who'd rather die than live a brutal life as a slave.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A choice of two evils, May 30, 2000

By 

Linda Marchant (Charleston South Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ebony Sea (Hardcover)

Can you imagine being taken away from your mother father, sisters and brothers in the middle of the night by a stranger? Yesterday, you were free to run ,play ,jump ,laugh and sing with your friends, but now you are shackled by your arms and ankles. You cannot move on your own because you are chained to another child and that child is chained to another child. All of a sudden you are on this boat with hundreds of other men, women, children, and babies,riding endlessly in the dark of the night. You look up and you see someone weak, someone in pain, someone about to die. You are afraid but you cannot run you cannot hide. You hear voices of men and women screaming at the top of their lungs. These men and women who have just been beaten. Suddenly the ship comes to a stop. The men who forced everyone on the boat are now resting, resting from the long journey. They are not paying attention to the hundreds of slaves who they threw crumbs to, who they beat continuously on this passage this long dark middle passage. One by one mothers and fathers start walking and staring straight into the sea. Children are following them. It's as if they are all in a trance. They walk like tired soldiers into the water. One by one they go farther and farther away until you can't see them anymore. The blue sea becomes the sea full of ebony people who'd rather die than live a brutal life as a slave.