Book Review: There Was Once a Slave

"If all history books were written in Graham’s style, no child would ever say, “I hate history.” With lyrical descriptions of time and place, she quickly drops the reader into her subject’s setting. The fear and despair of the opening scene are palpable. Graham doesn’t relate facts, she tells a story of real people with real feelings and motivations.

Graham doesn’t make Douglass a saint, but she takes us through his lifetime of dedication to the cause of freedom, not just for slaves but for anyone fighting oppression. We see what he suffered, what he gained, and what he lost."