Unbound by Anne E. Burg

When nine-year-old Grace learns she is being sent to work in Master Allen's "Big House", she is unhappy. It will mean leaving behind Mama, her two younger brothers Thomas and Willy, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jim and his night stories and singing. Grace has light blue eyes and pale skin, different from her mama's brown eyes and dark skin.  But Grace has no choice. Her mama makes her promise 

"to always be good,
to listen to the Missus,
never talk back,
to lower my eyes...
to not speak
less spoken to first."

Her Aunt Sara tells Grace that her time in the Master's house will not be easy. She warns her that "the Missus is hateful as a toad" and that she needs to keep the promises made to her mama.

Her mama tells Uncle Jim, it's the pale skin that has led to Grace being called to the Big House. This  leads Grace to run into the swamp to visit OleGeorgeCooper, a runaway slave who is hiding "in the swamp with gators, snakes, n soul-stealing witches." OleGeorgeCooper has whip scars running across his face. Graces smears mud all over her face, arms and legs to make her skin brown, but when her mother sees her like this she chides Grace for not accepting the skin colour God gave her.

At the Big House, Grace is put to work in the kitchen with Aunt Tempie. There are three other slaves in the house: Uncle Moses, who helps Master Allen dress, drives his wagon and tends the horses, Jordan who waits on the Allens during dinner, and Anna who help Missus Allen dress and washes the clothes. Aunt Tempie warns Grace to avoid the Missus because she is "mean as a hornet...". Grace learns how to grind corn into flour, how to split a chicken and remove the bones. She learns that Jordan has runaway before and that he has a wife and a baby girl. 

As time passes, Grace longs to see her mother. She also sees how badly Anna, who does everything for the Missus, is treated. And she herself soon becomes the target of the Missus when she lets slip a few words, breaking her promise to her mother. But when Jordan runs just before the tobacco harvest, the Missus makes the suggestion that they sell Grace's family to make enough money to hire a new slave. 

Faced with being separated forever, Grace and her family decide to become runaways and flee into the Swamp. The dangers of the swamp are worth the risk of fleeing and being free.

Discussion

Unbound tells the story of a young girl and her family who work as slaves on a tobacco plantation in the southern United States. The story, told in free verse, provides young readers with what seems like a realistic portrayal of what the life of a nine-year-old child slave living on a plantation in Virginia/North Carolina would have been like. Burg does refer to some of the horrors slaves encountered, such as whippings, cruel treatment by their owners and the auctioning of slaves which often broke apart families forever. There is OleGeorgeCooper with the "ripples" across his face, Anna who gets whipped for "lingering", and Jordan who never smiles because he is not able to live with his wife and daughter. However, for the most part, the novel doesn't go into graphic detail.

Grace, who has blue eyes and light skin, is likely the daughter of Master Allen, who also has blue eyes and who views Grace as property, referring to her as "an investment". Grace isn't aware of this, as she believes she doesn't have a daddy, but her parentage is likely one of the reasons the Missus treats Grace cruelly and to break her spirit, suggests they sell Grace's family at an auction. 

Grace is a brave, strong young girl who finds she can't keep silent in the face of such oppression. When she learns about the duties the other slaves in the house have, such as serving dinner, helping Master Allen and Missus dress, Grace can't understand why the white folks are so helpless. When she learns that Master Allen intends to sell her mother and half-brothers in order to be able to afford to replace runaway slave Jordon, Grace makes the decision to run away, taking her family with her. 

Grace feels intense guilt because she broke her mother's promise to not talk back. She feels responsible for Master Allen's decision to sell her family. The Missus Allen made the suggestion as a way to "finally teach Grace who she is and where she belongs." Throughout her journey to the swamp, Grace must confront her inner turmoil. Eventually she confesses to her mother that they had to flee because she didn't keep her promises, keep her eyes down, keep her mouth shut. But her mother tells Grace that "Some folks done need a reason to hate...Hatin's a choice what's got nothin to do with you." Grace is not responsible for the evil others do. Her mother's love and forgiveness help heal Grace of her shame. 

Grace also learns that Aunt Tempie, whom she believed simply did whatever the Allens wanted,  has been intimately involved in helping runaway slaves for years. With shame, Grace realizes that she has judged Aunt Tempie the same way Missus Allen judged her.

Burg set her story in the early 1860's and Grace's fictional story is based on the real experiences of  slaves who fled to the Great Dismal Swamp to be free. The Great Dismal Swamp covered parts of southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina and was surrounded by plantations worked by slaves. Slaves like Grace and her family, who freed themselves came to be known as maroons. Life in the swamp was dangerous and hard, but the maroons were willing to endure it because they were free. The fact that slaves were willing to live in such difficult conditions, often moving deep within the swamp to avoid recapture, is a testament to the human desire to be free. In the Great Dismal Swamp, Grace finds the freedom her heart longs for.

Freedom's not jus a place
you find on a map.
Freedom's livin
with folks who love you
n havin the space
to love yourself.

Freedom's not bein afraid
To say your own thoughts
n follow your own heart,
just like the good Lord intended.

Unbound offers young readers the opportunity to learn more about slavery in America and to explore what the life of a slave was like in the early 1860's. The story told simply in free verse, sticks to the important elements of the storyline, making this a good book for middle grade readers.

Book Details:

Unbound by Anne E. Burg
New York: Scholastic Press   2016
344 pp.