Review by shoshin - Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington's Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away; Young Readers Edition

shoshin 's review for:

Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington's Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away; Young Readers Edition by Kathleen Van Cleve, Erica Armstrong Dunbar

4.5

adventurous sad medium-paced

This is a good book to introduce children to some tough parts of our history. Be warned, it does explain, though not explicitly, what rape is and some of the torture that enslavers inflicted on the enslaved (whipping, beating, etc.). It also explains very well in a very understandable way what emotional labor is (without using the term) and how the enslaved were expected to do physical and emotional labor for their enslavers. Finally, it occasionally ventures into speculation in ways that might not be clear to young readers, though mostly it handles the speculation well (by saying things like, "we can't know what happened here, but it could have been X or Y"). Choose what kinds of conversations your kids are ready for accordingly.

Content Warnings