Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson

 Homer has grown up as an enslaved boy on a plantation with this mother and sister, Ada. His mother and the two children make an attempt to escape to the south, and they are partially successful, but Homer convinces his mother to go back and get his best friend Anna.  When she does, she gets caught.  Homer and Ada are on their own in the swamp near their plantation.  The are found by a formerly enslaved man, Suleman who leads them to a secret community called Freewater deep in the swamp.  Homer and Ada find safety and friendship in the community, but Homer feels a terrible need to return and free his mother.  One of their new friends, Sanzi wants to be just like her hero, Suleman, and longs to leave Freewater where she was born to see the outside world. Defying all the advice of the adults around them, the children set out to make things right.

This is the winner of both the Newbery and the Coretta Scott King award last year.  I am sorry to say I didn't much like it. I only fought my way to the end because it received so much attention.  So, what didn't I like about it? The main problem was the character of Sanzi.  She was stupid and selfish.  Someone might defend her character by saying she was acting like a pretty normal 10-year-old would have acted, and that may be true, but I still didn't want to read about her.  She was making such big mistakes that had life-and-death ramifications for the whole colony and nobody was stopping her. Where were the adults in her life? All they did was give her a heart-felt lecture and then let her run off and do reckless things again.  I hate reading about stupid children in books. The other thing that bothered me was that the place, Freewater, didn't ever feel like a real place to me. I felt they didn't really capture how hard and nasty it would be to live in a swamp. They didn't talk about mosquitos, or stink, or fire ants, or the problem of getting enough nutrition living on a diet of fish and acorns. One commentator I read suggested the setting was implied to be in Florida.  I lived in Florida for five years, and know a little what a southern swamp is like.  In a southern swamp you never forget about the bugs, or the cotton mouths, or the gators if you want to stay alive.  Anyway, I think maybe kids might like it because there are adventures, and kind of an idealized hideaway place...I guess. Not my favorite Newbery. (416 p. 2022)