No More!: Stories and Songs of Slave Resistance

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Dramatic.....
Review: As author, Doreen Rappaport tells the reader in the forward to this amazing book: "In No More! I have attempted to trace the courageous struggle waged by enslaved Africans from the time they boarded the first slave ships heading for the New World to emancipation with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment." Ms Rappaport has compiled slave narratives and folktales, poetry, black spirituals, and biographies in this unique and engaging collection, to tell the brutal and humiliating history of slavery. Here are the stories of eleven extraordinary people, from the well know Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Booker T. Washington, to Suzie King Taylor who learned to read and write in a secret school and helped forge documents, and John Scobell, a runaway slave who spied for the Union Army. These are stories of resistance, rebellion, triumph and courage that inspire with their power. Ms Rappaports moving and dramatic text draws the reader in and transports you back in time on a historical journey from Africa, to the Middle Passage, the hard life on the plantation, and the taste of freedom on the Underground Railroad, to the Civil War and finally emancipation. Shane Evans bold and powerfully evocative oil paintings capture the emotions of pain, determination, hope, fear, and dignity in each beautiful portrait. Together, word and art put a very human face on the ugliness and inhumanity of slavery. No More! should be "must" reading for all children 10 and older. "On December 18, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in all states and territories, became the law of the reunited land. Black men, women, and children set out to meet their next challenge - freedom."

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Dramatic.....
Review: As author, Doreen Rappaport tells the reader in the forward to this amazing book: "In No More! I have attempted to trace the courageous struggle waged by enslaved Africans from the time they boarded the first slave ships heading for the New World to emancipation with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment." Ms Rappaport has compiled slave narratives and folktales, poetry, black spirituals, and biographies in this unique and engaging collection, to tell the brutal and humiliating history of slavery. Here are the stories of eleven extraordinary people, from the well know Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Booker T. Washington, to Suzie King Taylor who learned to read and write in a secret school and helped forge documents, and John Scobell, a runaway slave who spied for the Union Army. These are stories of resistance, rebellion, triumph and courage that inspire with their power. Ms Rappaports moving and dramatic text draws the reader in and transports you back in time on a historical journey from Africa, to the Middle Passage, the hard life on the plantation, and the taste of freedom on the Underground Railroad, to the Civil War and finally emancipation. Shane Evans bold and powerfully evocative oil paintings capture the emotions of pain, determination, hope, fear, and dignity in each beautiful portrait. Together, word and art put a very human face on the ugliness and inhumanity of slavery. No More! should be "must" reading for all children 10 and older. "On December 18, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in all states and territories, became the law of the reunited land. Black men, women, and children set out to meet their next challenge - freedom."

Rating:
Summary: A superb look at the slave culture of resistance and hope
Review: As the title promises, "No More!: Stories and Songs of Slave Resistance" combines the true stories of eleven slaves with some of the songs and poetry of the culture that evolved around this peculiar institution. Author Doreen Rappaport tells the story of Frederick Douglass refusing to be whipped any more, but most of the stories told in this volume are about slaves who never became famous and who usually had just one name, like Peppel or Vina, formed from composites of real people. These are stories of resistance, such as Suzie King Taylor learning how to read and write in secret and Adeline worshipping in hidden "hush harbors." Rappaport gets these characters from autobiographies and interviews, finding their voices in Black spirituals, slave narratives, and folktales.

The book was inspired by Harriet Wheatley's poem "My Pa Was Never Slave," which convinced Rappaport that throughout the brutal, humiliating experience of slavery, many African Americans resisted and found "inner" freedom. "No More!" is Rappaport's attempt to tell young readers about the courageous struggle waged by these enslaved people from the time when the first slave ships arrived in the New World to the day of emancipation that came with the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Rappaport provides not only the lyrics to slave songs and spirituals, but also the music (e.g., "Go Down Moses") when it is known. She explains how these songs not only offered hope, as in "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel?", but could also contain coded messages about a secret route to freedom, such as "The Gospel Train." The book contains paintings by Shane W. Evans, done in the primitive "folk" style that is totally appropriate to these stories, tries to capture the reality and darkness of slavery.

American history texts talking about this period can do little more than touch on what slaves did in the South to resist their state. Rappaport and Evans rectify that defect with this superb book that will give young readers a memorable idea of how slaves retained their humanity under inhuman conditions. This is a special book for this subject and age group.