Unbound: A Novel in Verse

About this book

From the award-winning author of All the Broken Pieces, comes a new novel-in-verse that is a gripping, transcendent story about a little-known piece of slave history.

Grace has grown up in slavery. As difficult as life on the Virginia plantation is, at least she has her family: Momma, her younger brothers, Thomas and Willy, Aunt Sara, and Uncle Jim. When she overhears Master and Mistress plotting to sell her brothers, she and her family decide to run away that same night. But without time to plan their escape and go north along the Underground Railroad, their only choice is to head deep into the woods of the Dismal Swamp—a remote wilderness, filled with wild animals; daily searches for food, water, and shelter; and the ever present anxiety of being caught.

Historians have recently discovered evidence of the Dismal Swamp, and a community of slaves who sought refuge there. Ann Burg’s unflinching story, written in her signature luminous verse, sheds light on this little-known story and the courage of a people who risked everything for the chance to be free.

Reviews

Awards and Praise for All the Broken Pieces

*" [A] stirring debut novel . . . will make readers want to rush to the end and then return to the beginning again to make connections between past, present, friends and enemies." -Booklist, starred review

*" The verse form carries highly charged emotions and heavy content with elegiac simplicity." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review

*" Using spare free verse, first-time novelist Burg beautifully evokes the emotions of a Vietnamese adoptee as he struggles to come to terms with his past." -Publishers Weekly, starred review