by Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge
Lerner Publishing Group
3/7/2023, paperback
SKU: 9781728464077
Millions of Africans were enslaved during the transatlantic slave trade, but few recorded their personal experiences. Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano is perhaps the most well known of the autobiographies that exist.
Using this narrative as a primary source text, authors Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge share Equiano's life story in "found verse," supplemented with annotations to give readers historical context. This poetic approach provides interesting analysis and synthesis, helping readers to better understand the original text. Follow Equiano from his life in Africa as a child to his enslavement at a young age, his travels across the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, his liberation, and his life as a free man.
Target age: 10 to 18
Reviews:
"Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge--former fourth grade co-teachers--brilliantly transform the autobiography into 'found poems' by cutting and rearranging Equiano's original into verse... Their deft transformation of Equiano's odyssey is well-equipped to inspire and empower new generations." -- Shelf Awareness, starred
"Without losing the source text's emotional heft, Edinger and Younge's visceral poems respectfully provide an effective entry point into the seminal work." -- Publishers Weekly, starred
About the Authors:
Monica Edinger is a retired classroom teacher and the author of the children's book Africa Is My Home: A Child of the Amistad (Candlewick 2013), which won the 2014 Children's Africana Book Award. Monica is a children's book world influencer with a large following on her blog, educating alice. She has contributed reviews and articles for the Horn Magazine and The New York Times, served on several award committees, and published numerous books and articles for educators. She is based in New York.
Lesley Younge is a writer, mother, and educator currently teaching middle school English and math in Washington D.C. Originally from Southern California, she graduated from New York University and Bank Street College of Education. Lesley has developed curriculum with a wide range of organizations such as the Central Park Conservancy, the Museum of Art and Design, the Montgomery County Lynching Memorial Project, the Zinn Education Project, and the National Museum of Asian Art. Now she is the author of two books for young people, Nearer My Freedom and A-Train Allen.