Newbery Medal (John Newbery Medal)
Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan
A picture book that restores the lives and dreams of eleven enslaved people through poetry and collage.
Work Information
From the bare facts of an auction register, Ashley Bryan recreates memory, dignity, and hope.
Using an 1828 appraisal as its starting point, the book imagines the inner lives and dreams of people reduced to property.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
- Published
- 2016-09-13
- Pages
- 56 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 25.4 x 1.02 x 27.94 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781481456906
- ISBN-10
- 1481456903
- Price
- 3362 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Children's Books/Geography & Cultures/Multicultural Stories/Black & African American
Newbery Honor Book Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book Using original slave auction and plantation estate documents, Ashley Bryan offers a moving and powerful picture book that contrasts the monetary value of a person with the priceless value of life experiences and dreams that a slave owner could never take away. Imagine being looked up and down and being valued as less than chair. Less than an ox. Less than a dress. Maybe about the same as…a lantern. This gentle yet deeply powerful way goes to the heart of how a slave is given a monetary value by the slave owner, tempering this with the one thing that can’t be bought or sold: dreams. Inspired by the actual will of a plantation owner that lists the worth of each and every one of his “workers,” the author has created collages around that document, and others like it. Through fierce paintings and expansive poetry, he imagines and interprets each person’s life on the plantation, as well as the life their owner knew nothing about—their dreams and pride in knowing that they were worth far more than an overseer or madam ever would guess. Visually epic, and never before done, this stunning picture book is unlike anything you’ve seen.
Ashley Bryan (1923–2022) grew up to the sound of his mother singing from morning to night, and he shared the joy of song with children. A beloved illustrator, he was named a Newbery Honoree for his picture book, Freedom Over Me . He also received the Coretta Scott King—Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, was a May Hill Arbuthnot lecturer, a Coretta Scott King Award winner, and the recipient of countless other awards and recognitions. His books include Freedom Over Me ; Sail Away ; Beautiful Blackbird ; Beat the Story-Drum, Pum Pum ; Let It Shine ; Ashley Bryan’s Book of Puppets ; and What a Wonderful World . He lived in Islesford, one of the Cranberry Isles off the coast of Maine.
Reviews
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beyond imagination
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.
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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.
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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!
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Ordered twice and twice I've got a book with a damaged cover page. Returning the book once again !!
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I have used this book as a resource in elementary and high school. Students loved it and were really interested in the stories of the people depicted in the poems. It's important to remind students that people who were enslaved were also people with lives, hopes and dreams. The illustrations and poems are beautiful. My students loved how the stories overlapped and included a sense of community and family.
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This book is a more complex read. It humanizes 11 slave stories. Not a direct Juneteenth story. Was reccommended as a favorite of Boston Children’s museum