Julius Lester (1939–2018)

In a visually and emotionally provocative picture book for mature older children and young adults, Julius Lester provides text to go with twenty-two powerful, boldly coloured oil paintings by artist Rod Brown from his exhibit From Slavery to Freedom. Some of Brown’s images are of terrible things—bodies of Africans, who did not survive the Middle Passage, bobbing in the sea; the bleeding welts on a slave’s back; and the silhouette of a hanged slave—and the author uses some charged show more language to accompany these pictures. Lester pushes his readers with probing questions and mental exercises. He asks them to imagine themselves into the experiences of slaves: their transport from West Africa to the New World, their sale at auction, their work in plantation fields and houses, their attempts at running away, participation in the American Civil War, and finally their release from slavery by Lincoln’s 1862 Emancipation Proclamation or by the later arrival of Union soldiers.

Some of Lester’s questions are intended to encourage empathy: “How would I feel if that happened to me?” Some ask readers to look more closely at the paintings and to imagine what the painted figures are thinking or talking about. Still others challenge young people to confront “something more difficult”—for example, what it was like to be “not the victim, but the aggressor.” Lester observes: “We may think that we would never whip someone until their flesh cried blood. But what if you would not be punished for doing it? What if your peers approved and deemed you honorable and good for beating someone?” Regarding the principled white people who assisted fugitive slaves to the northern states or Canada, the author asks: “Would you risk going to jail to help someone you didn’t know? Would you risk losing your freedom to help someone not of your race?”

Thinking about this short, forty-paged book, I find it remarkable how much Lester has managed to pack in. Not only does he cover a great deal of American history, but he also considers larger questions about the importance of stories—those that diminish and those that empower, what it means to be human, and what freedom consists of. “Freedom from slavery was not the same as freedom to do whatever they [slaves] wanted.” It is “a promise we are still learning to keep.” show less

Author Julius Lester and illustrator Jerry Pinkney join forces in this lovely picture-book retelling of the tall tale of John Henry, the legendary African-American steel driver whose contest with a steam-powered drilling machine has been immortalized in American folk music. Extraordinary from the moment he was born, John Henry amazed the woodland animals, his parents, and the sun and moon themselves. Eventually setting out to make his way in the world, he performed marvelous feats, before show more eventually coming to the mountain in West Virginia where the railroad needed to get through. It was here he triumphed in his race with the machine, only to die in the end...

I have always thought of the story of legendary hero John Henry as being a meditation on humanity and the human spirit - on our strength and weakness, our ability to perform extraordinary deeds, and ultimately, our mortality. Set in a time of increasing mechanization, the story both upholds the idea of the human being as superior to the machine, and undermines it, by highlighting that our great deeds must come at a price, and cannot be sustained forever. Lester's poetic and poignant retelling in this picture-book captures that feeling for me, while Pinkney's gorgeous watercolor illustrations ably bring out the beauty and power of the central figure's story. The artwork here was definitely worthy of the Caldecott Honor it received! I've long been aware of this retelling, and am glad to have finally picked it up and read it. I will have to seek out the one from Ezra Jack Keats, and see how it compared. Recommended to all young tall-tale lovers, as well as to fellow Pinkney fans. show less

I can't believe this book was published in 1968, won the Newbery in 1969, and none of my teachers in grade 7 and 8 recommended it. It could be such a foundational book for a young teenager. We needed this book.

It's a moving account of slavery collected from the words of people who lived it. The oral histories recorded by the Federal Writers' Project in the 1930s include stories that go back to people who remembered life in Africa before they were kidnapped and sold, usually at secondhand show more but still incredibly vivid. So To Be a Slave is not just history, it's a collection of primary documents. Young people in school could gain an introduction to historiography.

Julius Lester closes with a chapter on life after Emancipation. It didn't get better, for many if not most African Americans. That really drives home how much needed to be done in desegregation and civil rights activism in the 1960s and how much is left to be done today. show less

5Q, 4P. Incredibly beautiful and moving short novel about the largest slave auction in history. This book follows Emma, a 12 year old slave girl who takes care of the two children of a plantation owner, as she witnesses the tragedy of having her family, friends, and relations torn away from their homes and sold. The book's narration shifts constantly, allowing for perspectives, flashbacks, and reflections from the plantation owner, his children, the auctioneer, the slaves, Emma's parents, show more and Emma herself. Refreshingly honest and straightforward, the author does not gloss over any of the language or attitudes of the slave owners and former slave owners - there is no glossy ending in which everyone realizes that they were wrong. That said, there is hope. And love. And a great deal of feeling portrayed through a very short novel. show less