Heart and Soul

Bibliography:
Nelson, Kadir, and Martha Rago. Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans. New York: Balzer + Bray, 2011. Print


Plot Summary:
This Coretta Scott King Honor and Winner Book is an incredible book of hope, courage, and determination of the human spirit.Nelson tells the struggle of African-Americans in America through a fictional narrator. This story details in chapters showing how African-Americans worked hard and endured discrimination, hardships , but managed in some instances to triumph in wicked and evil injustices that were in place only to keep them in an inferior position. Heart and Soul begins with a prologue in which the narrator admits she is ashamed of her past of being a slave. The narrator  goes on to tell the story of slavery,abolition,reconstruction,westward expansion, the great migration and ends with an epilogue in which the narrator describes participating by walking her 100 yr old legs in an election in which Barack Obama, the first time an African -American, won the Democratic nomination for president of the yet to be United States of America.

Critical Analysis:
Heart and Soul is wonderfully written book and it looks like a picture book but this nonfiction book is so much more. It has wonderfully illustrated pictures that show the emotion on the faces of the men, women, and children who are depicted in the narrator's memoryThe illustrations are so detailed with the rich brown hues that it causes you to try to read their expression to self- reflect how you would feel if it were you living during this time period.I read the book with pride and came away feeling inspired about the accomplishments that were made in spite of all of the broken promises and vile behavior of so many people who felt that African-americans were nothing. This book will have you cheering with emotion and angered with feelings of pain for the victims who suffered at the hands of many  selfish evil people. Slavery was ugly and so was the Jim Crow years that came after it and lasted for many years.

Review Excerpts:

Kirkus Review
In an undertaking even more ambitious than the multiple-award winning We are the Ship(2008), Nelson tells the story of African -Americans and their often central place in American history.


Connections:
1. This book can be used to discuss modern discrimination against other groups of people in the world today. Students can study other cultures such as the Chinese, Irish, and Latino or Afro-latino groups.
2. Students can study geography of the journey and the different countries in Africa who participated in the slave trade.