Enhanced by rich backmatter, this is a strong addition to literature about slavery.
A fictionalized account of the last slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States.
Despite the U.S. ban on the importation of enslaved labor, plantation owner Timothy Meaher bet that he could bring in a shipload of Africans. In 1860, a ship called the Clotilda, under the leadership of Capt. William Foster, sailed from Mobile, Alabama, to the kingdom of Dahomey. There, Foster purchased 110 people—including a 2-year-old girl—who had been captured by the king’s soldiers. Fourteen voices, including that of the ship, tell the tale of that journey across the Middle Passage and the years following their enslavement, first in the Alabama swamps, then on plantations, and finally in the free settlement of African Town (later renamed Africatown). The highly personal stories in verse reveal the different aspects of this illegal trade and the impact on both the Black enslaved people and the White crew members. Most well known is Kossola, who was long thought to be the last known survivor of the Atlantic slave trade. Latham and Waters use a different poetic form for each narrator, giving each a distinct personality. The Africans’ attempts to hold true to their home cultures and traditions—most were Yoruba—as they try to adapt to their new reality come across most powerfully.
Enhanced by rich backmatter, this is a strong addition to literature about slavery. (map, authors’ note, characters, Africatown today, timeline, glossary, poetry forms/styles, resources) (Verse novel. 12-18)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-32288-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
An unwieldy but emotionally intense fantasy.
In the Riew siblings’ debut, inspired by their Korean grandparents’ experiences during Japan’s early-20th-century colonization of Korea, a hunt is on for the last surviving tiger.
In the Tiger Colonies, this fantasy world’s version of occupied Korea, tigers have been nearly wiped out by the Dragon Empire. These oppressive rulers believe that tiger ki, or powers, strengthen the Tiger people, and therefore, the animals must be exterminated. Lee Seung, who’s from a poor Tiger family, works for the wealthy Chois, a Tiger family who collaborate with the Dragons. Choi Eunji might live in material comfort, but her home feels like “a cage” thanks to her parents’ high expectations and control of her every move. She offers to tutor Seung for the Adachi Training Academy’s entrance exam; graduates attain elite, powerful positions. In return he’ll help Eunji experience life outside her cloistered manor. Despite their class differences, both teens long for freedom, but Seung fails the exam, and their paths diverge. They reunite during a frantic search for the last tiger—but are their motivations aligned? Some plot developments feel contrived, and the introduction of real historical elements at times feels deliberately educational rather than naturally emerging from the story. Nevertheless, the story vividly highlights the plight of Koreans during a traumatic era.
An unwieldy but emotionally intense fantasy. (authors’ note, diary excerpts) (Fantasy. 12-18)Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9798217002047
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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