The Horn Book Guide

INTERMEDIATE FICTION

Edinger, Monica

Africa Is My Home: A Child of the Amistad

64 pp. | Candlewick | October, 2013 | Trade ISBN 978-0-7636-5038-4 $17.99

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Robert Byrd. Edinger creates a fictional first-person voice for Margru, one of four Mende children aboard the Amistad, and through her eyes relates her enslavement in Africa, the shipboard revolt, and the captives' two-year stay in Connecticut while their mutiny case was being tried. Edinger avoids sensationalism without underselling the more disturbing parts of the story. Byrd's pen-and-watercolor illustrations embellish and extend the story. Bib.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2013