To Be A Slave is the intense and heartbreaking collection of stories from those who were slaves themselves. The book is written by the slaves who experienced the horrible and torturous journeys through slavery. The stories take place anywhere from the start of slavery in 1776 to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The majority of the stories take place in the southern colonies as they were for slavery until it was abolished in 1863. To Be A Slave is written by Julius Lester, a slave whose life was completely changed as he was separated from his family at the age of 10. The book is written from the point of view of slaves and organized in letters from the slaves with occasional explanations from the author. Written completely by slaves themselves, To Be a Slave really pulls at the heartstrings from its vivid descriptions of the slaves being whipped and the horrible shelter conditions to the sad stories of those who were separated from family at as young as the age of three.

"To be a slave" by Juluis Lester was a book about slavery and how the slaves were treated, everything that they had to go through. They suffered from torture, starvation, and working too hard. It's so sad knowing that people were owned just like an object in a house, and were ordered to do things that they didn't want to do. There were some really sad parts in this book that I read. Children and parents were seperated from eachother, they couldn't see eachother ever again. The children were sold for a very small price, the amount that you could spend on a piece of furniture. Some mothers even found their children drowned and they weren't payed anything for their loss. They were treated as property and slave owners had no sympathy for them. So many slaves were beaten until the point where blood was streaming down their backs and they couldn't move. Even if there was a simple thing that they did wrong like taking a break on the plantations, they were whipped and they suffered so much. Many slaves couldn't take it anymore, they had to escape. It was a risk that they were willing to take, they couldn't live like that anymore. Unfortuantely they were captured, sent back to the masters, and had to be punished. It's like their whole life is suffering, being tortured and trapped in a terrible nightmare. The book was easy to understand although the language was kind of different because there were some narratives that were written by slaves that did have a good education to write correctly. Slaves still wanted to educate themselves even if they have a lot of other work they had to do. They wanted to know the language, how to read, write and spell. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how slavery was for the slaves by reading their stories, some facts, and to really think about how it would be if you were a slave. It's good to know that you'll never be a slave and suffer as much as they did but it's also good to be captivated by the book and feel what the slaves writings are trying to portray.