About this item
Winner of a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator HonorA Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2016A School Library Journal Best Book of 2016: NonfictionStarred reviews from School Library Journal, BOOKLIST , Kirkus Reviews, and The Horn Book MagazineA Junior Library Guild SelectionThis poetic, nonfiction story about a little-known piece of African American history captures a humans capacity to find hope and joy in difficult circumstances and demonstrates how New Orleans Congo Square was truly freedoms heart.Mondays, there were hogs to slop,mules to train, and logs to chop.Slavery was no ways fair.Six more days to Congo Square.As slaves relentlessly toiled in an unjust system in 19th century Louisiana, they all counted down the days until Sunday, when at least for half a day they were briefly able to congregate in Congo Square in New Orleans. Here they were free to set up an open market, sing, dance, and play music. They were free to forget their cares, their struggles, and their oppression. This story chronicles slaves duties each day, from chopping logs on Mondays to baking bread on Wednesdays to plucking hens on Saturday, and builds to the freedom of Sundays and the special experience of an afternoon spent in Congo Square. This book includes a forward from Freddi Williams Evans (freddievans.com) , a historian and Congo Square expert, as well as a glossary of terms with pronunciations and definitions.
About the Author
Carole Boston Weatherford is a children's book author and poet who "mines the past for family stories, fading traditions, and forgotten struggles. " A number of Weatherford's books tell the stories of African-American historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, Jesse Owens, and Billie Holiday. Other books recount historical events such as the Greensboro Sit-ins and the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Weatherford's books have received a wide variety of awards, including a Caldecott Honor for Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom.
