"In an extraordinary slave narrative recorded in 1798, Venture Smith remembers his capture in Guinea as a child... Smith’s original, first-person account, published in 1798, appears opposite from Nelson’s stirring poems, which are written in Venture’s voice and both intensify and comment on Smith’s experiences. ... Dancy’s blurry sepia background art…includes ink lines that evoke chains and ropes and then broken bonds. It’s surprising that this essential part of American biography and history isn’t more widely known. Suggest this as a crossover title to adults."
     —Booklist

 "An astonishing, heartbreaking cycle of poems is set in counterpoint against the slave narrative that inspired them. ... Painfully, readers see how commerce governed Venture's life even after he was "freed," struggling always for his humanity against the spiritual chains put in place by the twisted economy that shaped him. Tragic, important, breathtaking."
     —Kirkus Reviews

"Readers will find this a fascinating contrast to Fortune's Bones (BCCB 2/05), wherein Nelson offered a voice to the voiceless, and they'll find much to discuss in both Smith's life itself and in the implications of weaving it into a contemporary project."
     —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books