Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson

Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans Reviews

• 
  Betsy

  Humans tend to be a highly visual species. When folks tell you not to judge a book by its cover, that's an optimistic sentiment rather than a rule. People like to judge by covers. Often we haven't time to inspect the contents of all the books we see, so the jackets bear the brunt of our inherent skepticism. With this in mind, Kadir Nelson has always had an edge on the competition. If the man wants to get you to pick up a book, he will get you to pick up a book. You often get a feeling that while he doesn't really care when it comes to the various celebrities he's created books for over the years (Spike Lee, Debbie Allen, Michael Jordan's sister, etc.) when it's his own book, though, THAT is when he breaks out the good brushes. Nelson wrote
  We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball a couple years ago to rave reviews. Now he's dug a little deeper to provide us with the kind of title we've needed for years. Heart and Soul gives us a true overview of African Americans from start to near finish with pictures that draw in readers from the cover onwards. This is the title every library should own. The book has heart. The pictures have soul.
  
  An old woman stands in front of a portrait in the Capitol rotunda in Washington D.C. Bent over she regards the art there, recounting how it was black hands that built the Capitol from sandstone. "Strange though . . . nary a black face in all those pretty pictures." Looking at them you would swear black people hadn't been here from the start, but that's simply not true. With that, the woman launches into the history of both our nation and the African Americans living in it, sometimes through the lens of her own family. From Revolutionary War soldiers to slavers, from cowboys to union men, the book manages in a scant twelve chapters to offer us a synthesized history of a race in the context of a nation's growth. An Author's Note rounds out the book, along with a Timeline, a Bibliography, and an Index.
  
  Kadir Nelson, insofar as I can tell, enjoys driving librarian catalogers mad. When he wrote We Are the Ship some years ago he decided to narrate it with a kind of collective voice. The ballplayers who played in the Negro Leagues speak as one. Normally that would slip a book directly into the "fiction" category, were it not for the fact that all that "they" talk about are historical facts. Facts upon facts. Facts upon facts upon facts. So libraries generally slotted that one into their nonfiction sections (the baseball section, if we're going to be precise) and that was that. Now "Heart and Soul" comes out and Nelson has, in a sense, upped the ante. Again the narrator is fictional, but this time she's a lot more engaged. The Greek chorus of baseball players in the last book spoke as a group and so the normally fastidious catalogers could look the other way. The old woman telling the tale in this book, in contrast, mentions family members, her opinion on various matters, and all kinds of personal details. She also, however, gives a good historical encapsulation of the past. With her voice, Nelson makes the book personal and gives it a bit of child-friendlier zing. In doing so, though, he's going to drive folks who like books to sit squarely in one section or another nuts.
  
  One criticism lobbed at the book is an opinion that Nelson's encapsulation of history is too slight. Too oversimplified or overgeneralized. I think instead that what we're dealing with here is an overview. An overview, mind you, of the overlooked. I don't know about your children's library shelves but mine aren't exactly full to bursting with encapsulations of the vast swath of African-American American history created in as engaging a matter as this little number. In making this book, Nelson has had to boil down great complex moments and ideas into their simplest forms. It's wonderful to see what's taken his attention here too. The choice to open with "The Baptism of Pocahontas" in the Capitol rotunda of Washington D.C. is an inspired choice. From there Nelson starts right off by pointing out that for as long as America has been colonized, black people have been there alongside the colonizers. You get to see George Washington with one of his slaves (a nice visual companion piece to other 2011 books like
  Jefferson's Sons by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley), and blacks who fought in the Revolutionary War (pair with
  Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson). The book hits a lot of the usual history like slavery, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement but it also finds time for things like The Great Migration (a topic I know I never heard mentioned when I was a kid), the role of WWI in the lives of black people, and how people were divided over Booker T. Washington. I was particularly taken with a section that gives attention to black women's roles in getting women the vote. Nelson's selections cannot possibly please every reader, but I'd say that when it comes to pinpointing the top moments, he has good taste.
  
  That said, while I didn't find the book to oversimplify as a whole, I did find individual sections would winnow down a moment or a person too far to be wholly understood without already having some history under your belt. One instance of this is when Nelson discusses Abraham Lincoln. After bringing up the Kansas-Nebraska Act Nelson's narrator says, "It put fire in the bellies of abolition folks all over the Union, including a country lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Because of it, that fellow decided to run for president." I'm not saying that statement is necessarily untrue, but it sure does sound as if that was the sole reason the man decided to run for office. We know this is not the case. A perhaps more egregious passage was pointed out to me by a teacher friend of mine who found the book's explanation of why we entered WWII confusing to say the least. First, we learn that the Nazis were occupying much of Europe and hurting people. Fair enough. Then the book says that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. "We couldn't stay out of it anymore, honey. It was time to saddle up and fight." Now let's say I'm a kid reading this book on my own with only the barest understanding of WWII. I've just read that the Germans were taking over Europe. Japan bombs us and now we're at war with them. So what, if anything, does that have to do with the Germans? As an adult with a little history under her belt (very little) I know the connection, but Nelson kind of slips this one by. Passages like this need a bit more if they're going to stand on their own.
  
  As with any Kadir Nelson book, it's the art that grabs you first. The cover sports an image that reminds you of classic Andrew Wyeth Americana. On it a strong young woman sits in a field, a baby in her arms. She sits in such a way that you get the impression that she is posing for her portrait. Her expression is neither happy nor sad, and as she looks at you she takes you in. Her hands belie the work she has had to do over the years. On her lap the baby is less guarded, but his eyes don't focus on the viewer exactly. It's like they're tracking just the slightest bit to the left. A person could read whole tomes of novels in these two. This could well be our narrator on the jacket, though Nelson never identifies her as such. What's more, I've just used about 146 words to describe a single solitary picture in this book. Now flip it open and see how many more await you inside. Some, like the burning KKK cross, are rough, and the canvas pokes out strongly beneath the paint. Others, like the portrait of Rosa Parks, belie Nelson's delicate hand and tendency to play with shading and light. Two page spreads of images appear at times and some have suggested that these take you out of the narrative. Personally I disagree. I find them a smooth transition from text, back to text.
  
  As for the subjects in the pictures, Nelson makes some choices that surprised me. White people do appear from time to time, and it's interesting to note what they're doing at a given moment. They don't move much, y'know. Nelson's style is more comfortable with portraiture than action (violence is implicated here with lonely whipping trees, fiery crosses and houses, or foggy images on old televisions), so when you see white people they are usually standing and regarding black people. The slavers on a ship or the customers at a sit-in in Greensboro stand and stare. Their faces are usually blank, though on occasion one will sport an angry expression. Then there are folks like George Washington who sit staring into the distance, utterly unaware of their servants and slaves, Lincoln, posing with tired eyes looking into the distance, or the National Guardsmen in Little Rock, Arkansas. Finally, by the end of the book, white people walk with arms interlinked with those of blacks in an effort to break down American injustice. Theirs is a journey too, albeit a much easier one.
  
  Discussing whether or not children will enjoy reading a work of nonfiction is difficult when you don't know the context in which they'll be reading it. It's my guess that nine times out of ten this book will be read by a student assigned it in school. They will scrunch their noses at the size but relax slightly when they see that it is only 108 pages or so. Then they may flip through and look at the pictures first. I know if I was ten and was handed this book that would be the first thing I'd do. And for the pictures that looked particularly interesting I might start to read. The kid who does that may then finally flip back to the beginning and go from there. If they do, they'll encounter a book that with warmth and good humor manages to catalogue injustice after injustice without bitterness. They'll learn about a portion of American history too little covered in the history books, even today. And in doing so they'll be the hope and soul of the future of our nation. Nelson has done us a great service in creating this book for us. Let's see if we've the guts and the moxie to take what he has given and put it to good use.
  
  For ages 9-12.
• 
  Destinee

  Five stars for art, no doubt. Kadir Nelson is really a genius illustrator, particularly his portraits, which are captivating and have this epic quality. How can an illustration just seem important in and of itself? I don't know, but these illustrations do. They're powerful.
  
  Now on to the text: I love that Nelson took over 400 years of history and told the story in under 100 pages. To sit and read this book in one go feels like the entire history of this country is flashing before your eyes. The scope of it is awesome.
  
  Of course, you can't really squeeze the whole "Story of America and African Americans" into 100 pages, can you? Not without leaving the reader feeling a little dizzy. And that's where I think the text runs into trouble. You have to skip over big stuff, and not really explain most things to satisfaction. It can be a little confusing and it has some bumpy transitions. Despite my complaints, the overall impact of the book is impressive.
• 
  Adriana Villagomez

  Have you ever wanted to know your family history? Have you wondered whether your ancestors were a part of a big event in history that took place? Heart and Soul is a story about the author’s family history that stretched back all the way to when his great-grandfather came to the newly found and settled America to serve as a slave. In this powerful and touching story, the author leads us through key points in history that embody the African-American spirit and their strives to be free. He timelines the great strives slaves had made from first arriving in the United States to the present, how he himself cast a vote to elect Barrack Obama as the first African-American president in 2008. His family had fought in the many wars this country was a part of and eventually made their way throughout the heartland of the U.S. Though this book doesn't go into great detail about the certain events that took place, it does well at introducing these events to cause further research and discussion.
  
  This story is such a great book to have on hand because although it is only one account of the author’s family history, it does a great job at highlighting the main events that occurred that affected them in some way. These events shaped the course of U.S. history to where it is today. This book would be a great way to introduce and guide discussion of race and how it applies even today. Heart and Soul has touched my heart because rather than reading all of these events in a history textbook, we were able to read it through a family’s perspective and through their emotions and thoughts. It was an engaging story that kept my interest as it should to many of the students who will read this.
  
• 
  Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance

  Kadir Nelson. He's the best. I could look at his paintings all day.
  
  Nelson takes on the persona of an elderly African-American woman sharing stories of her family from the time of their arrival in America through the era of Martin Luther King Jr. to write this mesmerizing history of America and African-Americans.
  
  Riveting is the word I would use.
• 
  Sharon

  It is a little hard to evaluate the text of this book independently from the images, just because the paintings are *so* arresting. I have to say, and maybe I'm the only one, but I was quite taken with the writing and voice as well. I think Nelson accomplished something that looks simple but actually must have been quite difficult, which is condensing really significant African-American historical events into just enough detail that they are understood from that culture's perspective. The familiar authorial voice kept it from becoming too condescending because it felt like it was speaking from a long experience, and the balance of hope was never lost even though the book is honest about times in history that were very difficult for this culture.
  
  Here's a couple of examples of what I'm talking about: on p. 53, the "now, it's not particularly easy to describe what was happening in Europe at the time, but I can tell you that in 1914, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated..." etc. By conceding that history is often viewed through a personal lens, Nelson gives the story the power to convey clearly just the details relevant to African-American and personal history. The sections on Harlem and inventors in particular are so bright and hopeful, but I love how Nelson also shows how people found hope in the worst of times, like singing the spirituals in the section on slavery. Honestly, I found the voice very warm and moving most of the time with all the "honeys" and "chiles" thrown in there, but it never felt too overly sentimental, either.
  
  It's almost a shame because I know this book is going to be recognized more for the stellar illustrations (as it probably should be), and it would be interesting what I'd think of the text alone and I'll never have that chance, but to me it achieved a lot in a deceptively simple way and definitely met the CSK criteria for promoting an understanding and appreciation of the culture. Last year, in February, an African-American mom was in the library looking for a book to give her son that went over a lot of the cultural history in a way he could understand and that would instill some pride. I did give her some books they could share, but I really wish I had been able to give her this book at the time. I think it's so beautiful and probably exactly what she was looking for.
  
  
• 
  Gail

  This was a short, succinct and very informative book on African American history. I listened to it as an audiobook and would recommend to adults and children.
• 
  Jenny Preston

  The paintings are beautiful, and the writing carries you along. It's a solid book for the elementary years. Nelson covers the hard topics of race from the beginning of the country through the Civil Rights act of 1964. If I have any complaints, I wish there'd been one more chapter to touch on recent history - at least Obama's election, if not the ongoing issues. It's mentioned in passing in the epilogue but not by name.
  
  I'll be using selected chapters in my 2/3rd grade classroom
• 
  Kelley

  You can get swept up in the illustrations alone, but the text is just as beautifully written.
• 
  Martha Bizzell

  I was first drawn to Kadir Nelson's Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans because of his artwork. After reading the text, I am at once impressed with not only the artwork, but his careful research and presentation of America's Story through the lens of an African American. You felt like you were sitting with someone's grandma as she told you the story, and you didn't fall asleep! This rich text can easily be a 5th grade read-aloud as it nearly covers our entire social studies curriculum! Each of the twelve chapters has beautiful, moving artwork. Teachers will enjoy the historical quotes included with each chapter, too. Two bonuses are the chronological Time Line and Bibliography. In the Author's Note, the author/illustrator (Nelson) describes that History was not his favorite subject, and this book grew out of his paintings of historical subjects. He devoted much research, time and energy gathering the information together that he portrays stunningly in Heart and Soul! The Bibliography can be used as accessible videos and websites for the students.
  
  As a future fifth grade teacher, Heart and Soul is a definite read-aloud for my class. Reading one chapter a day, you could cover this in a little more than two weeks. Since, it really is a nice review of 5th grade NCESS, I would read it in the spring as a review and pair it with writing, poetry and art. Students could research topics from each chapter and add to a class jigsaw Google Doc. We may even create a poem from our research and Nelson's textual information. How cool would that be!? The students' artwork can accompany our poetry and be published together digitally.
• 
  Jean

  Wonderful, wonderful book. I must own it for my personal library. The art is exceptional and the synopsis of each snippet of history gives just enough info to whet the appetite of young minds regarding America and African American history.
• 
  Heather

  This was a really excellent overview of American history through the lens of African Americans. It is brief but inclusive, covering all the major historical events, but with a focus specifically on how African Americans were affected by and responded to the events. I like how the story is told as if through a narrator, an older woman or grandmother, talking to a young person, perhaps a grandchild, and is given a sense of familiarity because she refers to the reader often as “chile” or “honey.” It’s told from the perspective of personal, family history, starting with her grandfather who was one of the last African-born slaves. This lends a much more personal touch to the story and the history because she recalls family members who had active rolls in the major events, rather than the events being objective history. Because of this, there is a lot more emotion that comes through, both good and bad, and therefore more empathy and understanding. There are many lesser known, but very interesting historical events featured as well.
  
  The full-page illustrations throughout are excellent, boldly colored and detailed. There are many very realistic portraits of historical figures like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among others.
  
  I think this would be an excellent complement to any history class and would provide a much needed perspective that is often left out, overlooked, or quickly passed over.
• 
  Miki

  Heart and Soul was featured on my library's homepage for Black History Month, and it sparked my curiosity as I usually check middle grade books that are featured during Black History Month and hadn't recalled seeing it in previous years. As a shorter audiobook (about one hour and 45 minutes), I thought I'd try it out.
  
  This is the story about black people in America told through a woman's history and her family's histories. It's what I wish history lessons were like in school: more ethnographical and less BOOORING. It's history told by the people who endured the hardship, but yet it is told with hope, positivity, and motivation. Readers learn about key figures like Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, and Abraham Lincoln. They also learn about movements like abolishment and emancipation. Lastly, readers are informed of geopolitics, like the Mason-Dixon line and Jim Crow laws.
  
  I think that if you're looking for a text for a younger reader that is full of historical detail that's told in an engaging manner, then this is the book. The narrator is fantastic, and the story is so well told that I'd happily buy this for my friends' kids!
  
  [Audiobook, borrowed from library]
• 
  Kimberly

  I read this book, The Underground Railroad, and Homegoing in quick succession. Perfectly complimentary. This book will be a family treasure forever.
• 
  Reina Williams

  Beautiful artwork and a compelling narrative, as told by a fictional (I think?) version of the author's grandmother. My son liked it more than just reading a history text.
• 
  Kirsten

  Kadir Nelson narrates the story of America and African Americans with perfectly melded word and illustration. I am so drawn to his beautifully rendered portraits of both the famous and the forgotten that it’s hard for me to turn the page. In the prologue, his slightly cheeky narrator tells the whole story—the good the bad and the very, very ugly. An essential introduction for 8-12 year olds.
• 
  Mary

  In addition to enjoying the amazing art of Kadir Nelson I learned some very interesting facts about our country's history.
• 
  Ammie

  The audio paired with this book was the perfect combo. J never wanted it to end. She felt like she had an afternoon with a long lost grandmother and she just curled up and sighed throughout.
• 
  Joanne

  A truly beautiful book to celebrate Black History month. The magnificent artwork of Kadir Nelson throughout the book highlights the stories of the struggles and journey of African Americans from slavery on through to the election of our nation's first black President.
  Highly recommended for everyone.
• 
  Janessa Miller

  I had to buy a copy of this for when my children are older after listening to the audio, especially for the artist's illustrations. The 100 year old grandmother was the perfect narrator choice as she touches on the big moments in American history through the lens of her own family's history. And my toddler already loves the pictures and begs to look at them.
• 
  Peoria Public Library

  Spencer rated it 3.5 stars.
• 
  Shazzer

  As posted on
  Outside of a Dog:
  
  It's a rare conundrum when I find myself wondering, which award should this book win? Newbery or Caldecott? The question came up with Brian Selznick's visionary The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which eventually went on to win a Caldecott medal. I asked it again with Selznick's latest, Wonderstruck (though I don't think Caldecott lightning will strike twice. Hugo's medal was a departure for the award, a statement, and I don't see it happening again). And then I come to Kadir Nelson's Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans. It's a beautiful work, in words and pictures, and I simply can't decide where it belongs more. It's possible we might have our first double winner or honor since 1982 (when A Visit to William Blake's Inn won the Newbery medal and a Caldecott honor). It would be only the second book to be awarded by both committees.
  
  Nelson's second time up to bat as an author (the first being the Coretta Scott King illustrator honor book, We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball), Heart and Soul recounts the history of the African Americans in America, told by a nameless grandmother figure. She tells the history as it relates to her family, mostly straightforwardly, but every once a while, in a voice that lets you know she's speaking just to you. The story begins around the Revolution and continues on through the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Through the pages, the narrator speaks of Slavery and Reconstruction, of Women's Rights and African American inventors and finally of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the movement of peaceful demonstration.
  
  I said before that Heart and Soul is a beautiful work, and it is. Stunning, really. Nelson's paintings are full of light and darkness, of texture and depth. They cover famous faces and made up faces, but each face is full of truth and beauty. Every page is worthy of being framed and mounted, and I can't imagine the Caldecott committee looking at this book and not wanting to reward it. As for Newbery, non-fiction is rarely given the medal, but often on the radar. Nelson's text is spare and to the point. By giving us a human narrator, he is acknowledging that this is not a complete history. All people have gaps and blind spots. It allows Nelson to be more subjective with his history. Not that he gets anything wrong, not to my knowledge, but it is a somewhat one-sided history. But such was Nelson's way with words, that I wanted more of them. I was disappointed that the history ended in 1964, though an Epilogue does give us a summing up of the succeeding years, up to the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
  
  That Heart and Soul deserves some shiny medal stickers is a no-brainer. It's definitely in the running not only for the Newbery Award and the Caldecott Medal, but the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award and the Sibert Medal, which goes to the best "informational" book of the year, an award won by We Are the Ship in 2009. Frankly, I don't care how and what it wins, only that it is rewarded. It's easily one of my favorite books of the year.
  
• 
  CH13_Meghan Schultz

  As the winner of the 2012 Coretta Scott King Award, this fictional picture book, told through the eyes of an elderly African American woman, represents the story of America particularly in regards to several inspirational stories of African Americans. This story is written as an intimate narrative thus making this story very accessible for middle school readers. This book details such events as life on plantations, Harriet Tubman, Lincoln and the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Ku Klux Klan, the significant roles played by black soldiers and cowboys, the Great Migration of the early twentieth century, World War II and the Tuskegee Airmen, Civil Rights, Jim Crow laws, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., African American innovators and leaders, etc. The story includes beautiful full-page paintings that literally demonstrate the feelings and emotions felt by African Americans throughout history.
  The story encourages readers to view history through the narrators eyes in hopes that history will become more personal and less “textbook.” This story helps readers to understand the heartache, grief, and oppression several African Americans felt throughout the over 400 year span of this story, yet still presents the undercurrent feelings of: courage, resolution, and determination (which are evident through each chapter) many African Americans demonstrated. While the story is told by a grandmotherly voice (it is my understanding from one who has literally “seen it all”), all of the facts and stories are verified through the author’s notes, timeline, and bibliography.
  This book is a wonderfully written personal narrative that allows readers to understand the African American perspective across America’s history. In terms of this picture book’s potential use, I could envision it being a great fictional resource for students to use while learning about slavery or 1950s America. The stunning graphics allow the story to come alive, and truly create an accessible story for middle school aged students. The sentence structure in this story could be a wonderful model for students learning about differentiated sentence structure and strong word choice. This book is also a wonderful representation of author’s voice in terms of specific word choice, as the story is told through the narrative stories of a an elderly African American woman.
  In addition, there is a wonderfully detailed NPR report in regards to the creation of the picture book. It gives a great overview of the book, and specifically focuses on three chapters in relation to their importance in American history as well as Nelson’s own commentary about the book and the events.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Barbara

  If this book doesn't win multiple honors when it's time for those to be doled out, I'll be surprised and disappointed. In this introduction to the history of African Americans, Nelson cleverly relies on the voice of a female narrator, a sort of Everywoman who describes for her descendant(s)how her ancestors came to this country on slave ships, and then how the parts they played in history, all the way through the civil rights movement and the 2008 election. This narrative device is just as effective in this title as it was in the earlier We Are the Ship in which Nelson used an Everyman to describe the history of the Negro baseball leagues. From the book's very first pages, the narrator's voice is true and engaging as she describes her family's part in the Civil War, the Great Migration, World War II, even the early feminist movement. In the back matter, Nelson describes his own less than stellar academic experiences with history, and how he came to fall in love with it over the course of his own painting projects. It is worth noting that he never intends to tell the definitive story of the history of African Americans in this volume; instead, he draws from his own family history and family members' recollection of a particular part of history. It's easy to picture him sitting alone in the dark somewhere staring at a cherished family photo and realizing that it, too, somehow captured an important part of history. When all has been said and done, after all, it is how events touch each of us and our loved ones that matters far more than the names of famous men and women. Nelson book makes that abundantly clear.
  
  With more than 45 illustrations, many covering an entire page, and some sprawling over two pages, the book offers a stunning visual appearance. His artwork lovingly shows the pain, dignity, determination, fear, and confusion on the faces of his subjects. His father figures often have their hands placed lovingly on the shoulders of their children as if to offer protection, support, and guidance. From an incredible collection of images, I was most moved by the portrait of a woman surrounded by cotton that has been laboriously harvested and cleaned as well as the one of Rosa Parks sitting stalwartly on that bus, and the one of the Little Rock school children as they attempt to enter the school building.
• 
  Paige Scott

  1) This story is told from the perspective of a 100 year old African American female telling what it was like to live during the time of the Civil War. She tells throughout her narrations of the struggles African Americans went through from picking cotton in the fields for their masters, to the effect of the Jim Crow laws had on America and how it split our nation into two, and the rallies and uproars of children being strayed away from education. Therefore, this book talks about now only the triumphs but alot of the struggles that some students may have never known happened in America. However, there are triumphs and justice served in the end, through the African Americans gaining equal rights. I think it is a great book to use in the classroom!
  2) Age Level: 6-10 years old, Grade Level: 1st-5th grade
  3) Appropriate classroom use: History, teaching the history that African Americans went through and also history about America as well
  4) Individual students who might benefit from reading: African American students who want to learn more about their heritage, or any student that loves learning about History
  5) Small group use: Small group use of this book could be used during Black History month and have each small group read a different book about African American heritage and present the facts to the class using a Jackdaw Story Sack. (just because I love that idea!)
  6) Whole class use: This book is a hard subject for some students, therefore we could all read aloud in class and discuss the effects and triumphs we have today in society compared to how society was back then, instead of the negative aspects. Almost a way of saying how far we have come.
  7) Related Books: Sweetgrass Basket, We are the Ship, Dancing in the Wings
  8) Multimedia connections: I could not find any multimedia connections to this book, but it has great pictures to show and read aloud in class anyways and you could even play the underground railroad music to set the tone for the students while reading.