Name: Someone Knows My Name
ISBN: 9780393065787

Lawrence Hill

Dreaming of escaping her life of slavery in South Carolina and returning to her African home, slave Aminata Diallo is thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War, during which she helps create a list of black people who have been honored for their serv

Someone Knows My Name

Melody Izard

A work of fiction with a well researched historical basis about the slave trade, told through the voice of a young girl who was stolen from her parents and her village in Africa and shipped to South Carolina. Aminata is a believable character who is determined to return to her birthplace. Along the way the horrors of slavery are described. 
It occurred to me how difficult something is to stop once people begin earning a great deal of money from it. There is no doubt that many people, during the many years of tolerance of forcing Africans from their homeland: separating them from family, bound, branded, shipped in unbelievably foul conditions, found this practice abhorrent. But just as Aminata had to stand by and watch helplessly when she saw slave traders march their captives in front of her, including a young girl who was so much like herself many years ago, Americans, Canadians, Britons and others around the world who profited either directly or indirectly from this horrid practice, continued to stand idly by thinking they could do nothing to stop it. 
The story is captivating and terrible and hopeful and discouraging. It left me hungry for more information.

Someone Knows My Name

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