BVBook Verdict
Essential Read

Freewater

by Amina Luqman-Dawson · 2022

Literary Fiction · ranked #256 in category

Winner · The Newbery Medal, 2023

Twelve-year-old Homer escapes a Virginia plantation with his sister and finds Freewater, a hidden community of formerly enslaved people living in the Great Dismal Swamp — a real historical phenomenon largely absent from American children's literature. Luqman-Dawson's Newbery Medal-winning novel is based on the real maroon communities that existed in the swamp for generations.

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The verdict

Category
Literary Fiction
First published
2022 · 2020s
Author
Amina Luqman-Dawson
Standing
Essential Read

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