A Voice of Her Own book review

"A voice of her own" by Kathryn Lasky and illustrated by Paul Lee is about Phillis Wheatley who was a slave poet. Phillis was taken from Africa as a young child to be enslaved in Boston. Despite being enslaved Phillis learned to read, write, and speak several languages. Adversity didn't keep Phillis from writing poetry something that she truly loved. Phillis wrote about politics, the sky, whatever was important to her and significant in her life and in society. Wheatley published her book of poetry in 1774 called "Poems on various subjects, religion, and morals".

Beautifully illustrated in acrylic, this book portrays triumph over tribulations. I recommend this book especially during women's history month. As a African American female Phillis Wheatley was able to accomplish some incredible feats that were unimaginable in her time.Being a woman you didn't have much power or position, being African American she had even less position in life but she continued to do what she loved and produced a collection of poetry that can be read to this day, as the first African American to publish poetry.

The style of the pages were nicely done so that you wanted to continue on to the next part of the story. With excerpts from Phillis's poetry on each page you got a sense of who she was as a person and a writer. On each page you got a sense of her character.I think children will enjoy reading this book and looking at the pictures.