This book was incredibly touching. It shared the stories of eleven enslaved people and provided personal insight into their lives as people. It provided a very human and relatable message as an introduction to talking about slavery in American history. This book could be appropriate for slightly older students, maybe 3rd or 4th and up. It would not even be a bad book for middle schoolers to read as an intro to learning about this time period and civil rights. ( )

Freedom over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan. Ashley found actual slave papers from the sale of a plantation home that listed names, ages and the price of African people sold as slaves, as part of the property. He uses this information to imagine and tell their stories, each one of them. He creates and paints colorful images of where they lived in Africa, their family, what it was like the day they were stollen and life on the plantation. Their personalities and their relationships all come to life as Ashley imagines the lives slaves once had, and currently live, along with their strengths, talents and dreams. All beautifully illustrated in this historical picture book of love and loss and perhaps a new perspective. Ashley Bryan is a three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner.

Beautiful and poignant, poetry and imagination of both what slave life was like and what dreams they had. I particularly love how each person has another name in their dream life. ( )

The book is about the story of eleven slaves and recounts their lives and experiences. The illustrations are intriguing and have colorful, flowing lines through the illustrations. The illustrations also include portraits with words in the background made from things such as newspaper. I would recommend this book because it is important for children to learn about racism and the challenges slaves had to endure. This would be a good book to read to 3rd graders and up. ( )

Imagined narratives of slaves of various ages. Told in verse and wonderfully illustrated, this book could be used in a classroom of any age classroom to study perspective. Author’s Note.