The latest chapter book by one of my favorite authors, Kwame Alexander! He writes most of his books in verse, which I think would be much harder than writing in a "regular" book format, and I always appreciate that about his writing. I also appreciate how good he is at it, and at how good of a storyteller he is. If you've never read Crossover, do yourself a favor and read it now!
The Door of No Return is the story of Kofi, a young boy in western Africa living a young boy's life with his extended family and friends around him. Alexander explains in his author notes at the end of the story that he set out to write a book of African American history, a history that many of us think begins in 1619 when Africans began arriving in the Colonies as slaves. Alexander created this book to help show that the slave trade was the middle of the African American story, not the beginning, and the beginning might look something like The Door of No Return.
I don't want to give anything away from the story, so I will say that it took me a bit to find the rhythm of this book, as I am not well versed in African names, and adding that two characters have the same first name in the story made it a little tough for me to follow. But only for a while, and then...before I knew it, I could not put this book down! This is a good book, and important book, and an important element of the history of our nation that we don't usually get to see unless we go looking for it. As Alexander writes in this book, "Until the lions tell their side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always celebrate the hunter." In this case, the hunters are the Whites who stole Africans from their homes and families and shipped them to the "new world" as slaves. For hundreds of years.
We need more diverse literature in young adult and teen lit, and Alexander and this book are a vital part of that need. Everyone needs to read a book like this, but especially you, so that you can be a part of a different future. 5 paws!
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