HarperCollins
Wow. Just wow. At the age of 10, Aminata is living a life that anybody in her family line would have expected her to live. She’s clearly intelligent, she’s been learning how to deliver babies (“catch babies” in this book’s parlance), and follows along when her father reads his Quran. Then, in a matter of hours, Aminata’s life changes dramatically. Her mother, then her father, are violently murdered right in front of her eyes. She then spends three months marching to the coast of Africa, where she’s put on a ship and sent to the American colonies as a slave. From there we live her story of slavery, freedom, discrimination, and the many trials she must face through her long life. A tour de force and one of my definite favourites for the year.
Refocus for Reinvention