quite the children’s book.

It’s not often that you come across a children’s book as emotional as Monica Edinger’s Africa Is My Home: A Child of the Amistad, about a girl named Sierra Leone who was sold into slavery by her father. Based on a true story, this nine-year-old girl tells the story of her experience aboard the Amistad, a well-known slave ship that took her and other slaves, young and old to Cuba, and eventually to America. It took three years for her happy ending, but this child was eventually freed, like many others, and able to return to Africa. Filled with beautiful illustrations and exceptional writing, Africa Is My Home should qualify as a nonfiction read, for all of you Common Core nuts out there, grades 4-8.