Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan

The concept of this book is laudable. Based upon a real document, unnamed enslaved men, women, and children, are inventoried with the livestock and furnishings offered for sale during the appraisal and liquidation of an antebellum estate. The author-illustrator reclaims their humanity by imagining words and pictures identifying them as individuals with memories of life in Africa, feelings about plantation existence, and their dreams and yearning for freedom. They are provided with names, ages uand portraits which wrest them from annonimity, It is heart wrenching to think that these 11 people, once fleshed out, were given no more thought than cattle . The reader is reminded that all of their labor and now their sale will benefit someone else, Although they have been a community, they are facing separation and an unknown future to be decided by the whim of some unknown person with money. This Newberry honor book is beautifully and thoughtfully illustrated with evocative , melancholy slave portraits of each person alternating with lively, colorful, optomistic drawings showing a life of freedom. Although this is a Newbery honor book intended for a juvenile audience, I bought it for myself to see how the author-illustrator followed through with his concept. I was not disappointed with this presentation of a different way to tell this tragic story in American history from the enslaved people’s point of view.

Ashley Bryan tells a beautifully touching story in Freedom Over Me. The works would have to be called historical fiction but it is historical fiction at its best. The characters come to life as we see them from both the outside and then on their inside - their hopes and dreams and sorrows and cares. The artwork is outstanding. Now wonder this book won the awards it has.

I've been reading a page or two (basically one person's story) each night together with my son. This is a really powerful book, written well with beautiful illustrations. I bought it because I wanted him to start understanding institutional racism. He's young but the book is so accessible that he can relate to the people in the book and we have good discussions about a particular person, yet can also speak to broader historical events (and slavery's legacy).

Beautiful book! Amazing idea! We talk about slavery but this book gives life and honor to those lost in history. I love this book! It made the conversation about slavery less about dates or facts and more about the humanity of these people. Important book!

This book is so fascinating! The author used a market slip that simply contained names, ages, and the price of slaves bought. From that, he imagined their lives and shared their hopes and dreams with us. I used this with fifth grade students to discuss point of view.

If you want your child to read some history here’s the right book!This tells you about slaves of the Fairchild’s estate, such as Peggy, Dora and Charlotte, and John And lots more!!

Everything about this is beautifully done - the story, the pictures, and the audio.

Beautiful illustrations and powerful text. Inspired by a bill of sale which is prominently included. Great mentor text for 5th graders writing poems about life of an enslaved person.

Ordered twice and twice I've got a book with a damaged cover page.Returning the book once again !!

The book is great, but on the Kindle app it was impossible to read, you could not make the pages bigger, it was not formatted correctly - the only way to read it was to take screenshots of every page and then make them bigger in photos.If you are going to make it into an ebook you need to spend that little extra time to format it so it can be read. At least it was part of the kindle unlimited package if you paid for it you would be exceedingly annoyed!

How sad they were! All stories deeply touched me. Slavery is one of the most evil crimes mankind committed. Learning history from the view points of slaves’ real voices is crucial to understand what is slavery.