Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 02/01/2025 Young Nemy is an enslaved child who works in the sugarcane fields. One night she follows Big Mother to a small shack where she finds a group of women braiding each other's hair. She discovers that these hairstyles are a way of encoding secret messages that detail plans for escape and maps to freedom. Set in sixteenth-century Colombia and based on the story of San Basilio de Palenque, one of the first free African towns in the Americas, Duncan's fictionalized story helps to broaden knowledge of African enslavement in the Americas beyond the United States. Moses' digital art captures the difficult life endured by workers of these sugarcane plantations, the weary faces of these women, and the meaningful hairstyles that facilitated their escapes. Richly hued throughout, the color palette brightens as the group reaches freedom. Told in simple, often lyrical language and enriched with an author's note and end papers filling in details about the hidden meanings of the braids, this will be a welcome addition to elementary social studies and history units. - Copyright 2025 Booklist.