Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From Colonial times to the Emancipation Proclamation, the stories of African-Americans who fought to free themselves and their people from slavery.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, and many lesser-known leaders of slave rebellions are featured in this historical tribute; photographs, drawings, a timeline and a bibliography round out the volume. Ages 8-14. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 6 Up-The McKissacks explore slave revolts and the men and women who led them, weaving a tale of courage and defiance in the face of tremendous odds. Readers learn not only about Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey, but also about Cato, Gabriel Prosser, the maroons, and the relationship between escaped slaves and Seminole Indians. The activities of abolitionists are described as well. The authors' careful research, sensitivity, and evenhanded style reveal a sad, yet inspiring story of the will to be free. Black-and-white reproductions of paintings, drawings, and documents appear throughout. A fine contribution to a growing body of literature about the African American experience.æCarol Jones Collins, Montclair Kimberley Academy, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 5^-8. The McKissacks present a fascinating cast: the men and women who led slave revolts in the Americas. Among those introduced are Toussaint-Louverture, a skillful general who led a revolt in Haiti; Gabriel Prosser, a Virginia slave who was inspired by Toussaint-Louverture; and Cinque, who gave captured Africans a face and a name, as well as more familiar names, such as Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner. There is also information about day-to-day resistance and alliances between African and Native Americans, especially those between runaway slaves and the Seminole tribe in Florida. Acknowledgment is given to the white people, especially the Quakers and Methodists, who helped the cause of abolition, but the McKissacks make it clear that numerous blacks, known and unknown to history, took their fate into their own hands by securing their freedom and rescuing others. The writing itself is informative, though occasionally garbled; sometimes it's hard to know to what a pronoun refers. To be illustrated with black-and-white photographs. --Ilene Cooper

Horn Book Review

This thoughtful account of those who rebelled against slavery includes Toussaint L'Ouverture, Nat Turner, Cinque, Harriet Tubman, and John Brown, as well as the less well known Gabriel Prosser and Denmark Vesey. An epilogue notes that racism cannot be legislated out of existence but that 'wherever there is oppression, there is bound to be resistance to it.' Black-and-white photographs accompany the text. Bib., ind. From HORN BOOK 1996, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

Stories of African-Americans, some slaves and some free, who fought against slavery both in the US and the Caribbean, including Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Toussaint Louverture, and Denmark Vesey. Many of their stories have been told before, but the McKissacks (Red-Tail Angels, p. 1637, etc.) perform the important service of bringing them together in one volume. The book highlights that slaves were not--as some myths hold--passive sufferers awaiting freedom wrought by white abolitionists; many fought their oppressors with every available means, through minor inconveniences and full-scale revolts, taking leading roles in the abolition movement. The writing here is occasionally awkward- -readers may have difficulty distinguishing among facts, opinions, and rationalization--but these are gripping tales, in a solid volume about the slavery era. (b&w photos, not seen, chronology, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 8-14)