Juba!

by Walter Dean Myers

In New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers's last novel, he delivers a gripping story based on the life of a real dancer known as Master Juba, who lived in the nineteenth century.

This engaging historical novel is based on the true story of the meteoric rise of an immensely talented young black dancer, William Henry Lane, who influenced today's tap, jazz, and step dancing. With meticulous and intensive research, Walter Dean Myers has brought to life Juba's story.

The novel includes photographs, maps, and other images from Juba's time and an afterword from Walter Dean Myers's wife about the writing process of Juba!

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Audiobook, Fiction, Historical, African American, Middle Grade

208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 13, 2015

About the author

pseudonyms:
Stacie Williams
Stacie Johnson

Walter Dean Myers was born on August 12, 1937 in Martinsburg, West Virginia but moved to Harlem with his foster parents at age three. He was brought up and went to public school there. He attended Stuyvesant High School until the age of seventeen when he joined the army.

After serving four years in the army, he worked at various jobs and earned a BA from Empire State College. He wrote full time after 1977.

Walter wrote from childhood, first finding success in 1969 when he won the Council on Interracial Books for Children contest, which resulted in the publication of his first book for children, Where Does the Day Go?, by Parent's Magazine Press. He published over seventy books for children and young adults. He received many awards for his work in this field including the Coretta Scott King Award, five times. Two of his books were awarded Newbery Honors. He was awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award and the Virginia Hamilton Award. For one of his books, Monster, he received the first Michael Printz Award for Young Adult literature awarded by the American Library Association. Monster and Autobiography of My Dead Brother were selected as National Book Award Finalists.

In addition to the publication of his books, Walter contributed to educational and literary publications. He visited schools to speak to children, teachers, librarians, and parents. For three years he led a writing workshop for children in a school in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Walter Dean Myers was married, had three grown children and lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. He died on July 1, 2014, following a brief illness. He was 76 years old.

Reviews

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful and tragic story about William Henry Lane, known as Master Juba, a young African American man who was a gifted dancer. He lived and died in the 1800s, was passionate about dancing and was tremendously talented.

[Cathie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good historical fiction novel about William Henry Lane, better known as Master Juba or "Boz's Juba", set in the early 1800s. Juba was a black dancer who Charles Dickens wrote about after seeing him perform in New York. (Boz was a name du plume that Dickens sometimes used when writing articles for the papers.) Juba would later go on to travel to London to pursue his dream of having others see him dance.

The secondary characters (Margaret, Stubby, Jack, Sara, and many others) each had their own distinct personalities, and the whole story fit together well.

This is a story of one man who knew what his passion in life was and his ever searching quest to be able to attain it.

I was not expecting the ending. It would have helped to have some Kleenix handy.

[Book Riot Community]

There are a bunch of wonderful novels out today steeped in historic events, this one being among the best. Myers tells the story of William Henry Lane, a young black dancer credited with influencing today's tap, jazz, and step dancing. Myers extensively researched Lane, known on stage as Master Juba, to bring to life an often-overlooked artist. Sadly, this is Myer's last novel, as he passed away in 2014. If you've never read him before, Juba! is a great place to start.

Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/category/all-the-...

[J L's Bibliomania · Rating 3 out of 5]

Middle-grade or YA Historical fiction. Adequate novelization of the story of African-American dancer William Henry Lane (aka Master Juba) in the first half of the 1800's in New York City. Juba's claim to fame came because of his chance encounter with Charles Dickens, and the subsequent review in Dicken's American Notes. Juba danced in England in the 1850's. It didn't turn out well in the end, but I'll let you read the book to find out why.

In some ways the excerpts from historical documents are the best part of the book. I found the story a bit dry, and it took me two tries to finish Juba!

I'd not previously heard of Walter Dean Myers. Juba! has attracted some attention as being Mr. Meyer's last novel, as it was drafted and I believe in production when Mr. Meyers passed away in 2014.

[Alicia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up on this one. Give me a nonfiction about the REAL Juba and you might have kept my attention, but the story was slow and didn't keep me interested. There wasn't the signature 'character connection' that I typically feel with Myers' characters a la Monster, Fallen Angels, Dope Sick, or Sunrise Over Fallujah.

I'd venture that this wasn't complete when Walter Dean Myers passed, but nearly enough so that someone thought it best to publish it.

Points for an engaging cover and the topic, but it would have been best served as a nonfiction exploration of the man's life.

[Nicole Perry Kurilchick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting to read knowing that it is based on a real person in history. I had never heard about Juba, he seems to be one of those interesting characters who has gotten lost in history. The writing was kind of plain, but it made for an easy read.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting life of "Boz's Juba" (William Henry Lane), a young black dancer who, in the 1840s, helped to create tap dancing by blending Irish jigs & reels with African rhythms.

Brandon Gill does a decent narration, though at times when he was doing English voices, his accent wavered.

[YupIReadIt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sigh

[Kenya | Reviews May Vary · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, like most books based on real events. I am counting this book for the Read Harder Book about Sports, because dancing definitely counts!

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walter Dean Myers’ Juba was the perfect example of me buying and reading a book without reading more than three words of the synopsis, and then halfway through finding myself going “is this a YA read?”. It was, because unbeknownst to me, Myers wrote over ONE HUNDRED books for children and teens in his lifetime. A fictionalized account of the life of the very real William Henry Lane, known in the dance world as Master Juba, this first person narration details the life of a free Black man in the time of slavery making Irish dance his own, while struggling in his 30 years of life to claim anything else for himself. This book is a stark testament to what it is to be Black in this world. Lane comes up against requirements to perform in minstrel shows to get to dance at all, being undersold for his talent, having his dancing style appropriated, and being seen as a devilish anomaly for having a gift so profound while being Black. This book is an exact summary of how systemic racism undergirds the individual manifestations of the worldview to impact the opportunities, quality of life, health, and spirit of Black folks. A beautiful and intimate portrayal of a short life, Juba, Myers’ last book before his death, is a gem.

[Roberta Almeida · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully written and throughly researched hist fic book about William Henry Lane (Master Juba) who was a black dancer (credited to have influenced jazz and tap dance) and entertainer in 1850's NYC and London.
And as much as it's about his career and life choices and struggles it's also about overcoming barriers and understanding a whole new world.
It's a really fast read and so so enjoyable!!
It's also Meyer's last book as he passed away in 2014.

[Carol Baldwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing historical fiction is hard. You read shelves full of books, study documents, interview experts, ponder maps, photographs, and data. You work really hard to insert authentic details (what color dress would she have worn to the dance? What did he eat for lunch? What bus would she have taken to work?) and then plunge forward to create as authentic a character as possible.

But when you're writing a story about a young man who lived over a hundred and fifty years ago to whom you want to pay tribute, but yet there is little "real" data, your task becomes even more difficult. You have a few bones to build your story around-- perhaps a death certificate and a few photographs. If you're lucky, maybe you'll find a few newspaper articles you can dig up to authenticate your story.

Such was Walter Dean Myers challenge when he wrote Juba! (Harper Collins, 2015)

This book for middle grade or young adult readers, is based on the true story of a talented young black dancer considered to be the inventor of tap dancing. While performing in New York City, he was noticed by Charles Dickens who wrote about him in American Notes:


"Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine; dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs - all sorts of legs and no legs - what is this to him?"
"And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink, with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one inimitable sound!"


Walter Dean Myers, in his last book before his death, told the story of William Henry Lane (Juba's real name) using just a few resources: Dickens' writings, a smattering of newspaper articles and images, and Juba's death certificate. Here are a few of my favorite quotes.

Initially Juba seeks dance instruction from an Irish teacher named Margaret. (This particular passage reminded me of a comment my current dance partner--my husband's 85-year-old uncle--made. "When you see old people dancing, they're imagining themselves as teenagers.")
"If you weren't so thickheaded, you'd know they [the audience] were watching you because they want to enjoy themselves, not marvel at you. You ever go to an Irish dance and see the young people swinging themselves around and kicking up their heels and the old people watching them? The old people are thinking back on a time when they were young and they could do the same thing the young people are doing. But you have to give them something they can do, if only on the floor between their ears, if you get my drift." (p. 44)
The reader hears Juba's despondency and realism in the following line. He has just auditioned as a dancer and thinks he won't get the job.
"My dancing didn't mean a thing. The only thing they see in a black man is a clown or a slave. "(p. 55)


Juba finally gets a few gigs as a dancer but when Mr. Charles Dickens comes to New York and watches him, he dances as he never has before. This quote begins with Mr. Dickens speaking.


"...There's a freedom about the way you move that makes me wish I could dance. Have you ever had a difficult time in your life?"

"At times, everything seems hard," I said. "I'm not sure what tomorrow is going to be like. I'm just hoping it's something good."

"I imagined--and I know I'm talking too much--that you must have had some difficult times along the way. I think that's the mystery of greatness and of people who achieve wonderful things," Mr. Dickens said. "That somewhere in their lives they have felt the cold winds of despair, but have kept their hearts warm themselves." (p. 104)


In order to make a small living Juba is forced to make compromises.

Jack [his "fair minded" white landlord] knew how black people were treated in New York. We were second-class people every day and third-class performers when we tried to exercise our talents outside of the black community. What he did was to needle me so I wouldn't give up all together, and in a way, I appreciated it. In a way, I didn't, though, because sometimes he made me feel that when I accepted a job with a minstrel band or put on blackface I was betraying my people. To me, putting on blackface was the strangest thing in the world. I was born black, and yet the promoters wanted me to dress up like some kind of strange image of a black person that really wasn't a true Negro. It was as if a lot of white people had a place in their heads for black people and you had to fit in that place in a certain manner or they didn't want you. They wanted black performers to talk bad, say stupid things, and be like pets. Jack said a lot of white people were afraid of real black people. (pp. 123-4)
Even after Juba was well received by Londoners who had read accounts of him by Charles Dickens, he still encounters this same prejudice from fellow performers.
Huff [another performer] walked across the room and put his nose an inch from Gil's. "What I see with my own two eyes is that I'm not going to make no kind of steady living working for a nigger. And that's what I'm doing over here, working behind Boz's Juba or whatever it is he's calling himself. In America you make a living working with white men, and for white men. And I aim to go back to America, back to Mableton, Georgia and make a living. And if I want any coloreds around me, I'll buy a few!" (p. 157)


Walter Dean Myers did an excellent job of bringing this forgotten, yet important, performer to life. Juba's life was full of sorrow, yet it also held love and accomplishment. I hope whoever wins my gently read ARC, will pass it along to a young person who can be encouraged by an inspirational story of a man who, despite many obstacles, followed his dreams.

[Grace]

DNF @ pg. 20
Not bad, in fact it's good. I just find it a little boring. It's not what I generally read.
Would watch the hell out of a movie of this though and love it!
A movie similar to La Bamba (1987) or Crossroads (1986) would suit this book so well.
My movie and book tastes do not align with each other hahaha

[Ernie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Myers was the multi-award winning writer of the classic YA novel Monster (1999) which, if you have not read it, you should right now. He is an African American who wrote about exploited youth and injustice and in Juba, his last novel, he turns from his contemporary American city characters to base his story on his historical research of an African American dancer, Juba, who became famous as “Boz's Juba” after Charles Dickens saw him perform in New York in 1852 when Dickens was so impressed that he wrote about him in his book American Notes. This fame allowed Juba to tour England where he performed before Dickens again at Saddlers Wells Theatre and married Sarah the English wardrobe mistress and settled in England.
This is not only Myers showing his biographical skills but an integration of black lives in the desperately poor Five Points district of Lower Manhattan with the shared experience of the dance between blacks and Irish migrants, between Southern USA tap dancing (Mr Bojangles) clog dancing and traditional Irish dancing. There are very few novels about the dance and this is one that brilliantly represents what Yeats understood when he memorably wrote of that magic that sometimes enters the dancer's body as muscle memory takes over to provide an intense pleasure for both dancer and audience when “who can tell the dancer from the dance?”.
The other story is Juba's struggle to survive in New York as a free born black youth, without parents, born two years before New York freed the slaves in 1827 but still in danger of being sold into slavery as one of his friends was when he performed on tour in Washington. His other struggle was to dance in his own tradition when “darkies” or his company, “The Ethiopian Serenaders” were expected to blacken their faces and “coon it up” for laughs in the Black and White Minstrel Show tradition because most whites could only imagine blacks as clowns or slaves.
The other characters are all memorable, especially his Irish dancer neighbour, Miss Margaret Moran, Stubby the ambitious cook, Jack Bishop who hires the youths to push a handcart selling smoked oysters in the streets and Peter Williams a white man who runs a black dance club and a few street rackets. The stories move from the fire trap tenements to the streets, the clubs and the theatres. For a brief period Juba found fame and was paid almost like a white performer after years of living from hand to mouth. All dancers should read this book and it holds intense interest for all with Juba's unique story. Myers supplies a time line and research notes as well as facsimile copies of reviews and newspaper accounts for all those who might find this fictionalised history unbelievable.

[gem · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I would never have come across had I not been sent a copy by Harper360, and as soon as I received it I started reading as it sounded so different from anything I'd usually read.
Based upon the life of William Henry Lane, "Juba" who was a black dancer in the mid 1800's, this story is fascinating.
The way the author describes the dancing is wonderful, I could clearly picture Juba and the other performers as they moved across the stages they were on. Each character was well drawn, and the time in which it was set was realised with little details which made it easy to think about how life would have been for people back then. The added details of photos or newspaper reports was also great and made it seem even more real.
The book has some strong themes, and the one I picked up on most was never to stop believing in yourself - Juba overcame prejudices and set backs, yet he continued to perform. The timeline at the end of the book shows how much he accomplished, and that was really incredible considering how young he was.
I don't really know a great deal about the slave trade that was so rife in America during this period and this book has dealt with it really cleverly - it touches upon it, reflecting how important it was and how it affected everyone, whether they were free or not, and it has actually made me want to learn more about it. I can imagine that this book would be read in schools across America for this reason.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction, yet at the same time I think it would appeal to fans of contemporary fiction as the story itself has so many elements that people can relate to their own lives.
A fantastic book!

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice, short, historical-fiction read about the life of William Henry Lane, or Juba, a young African-American man who loved dance and wanted to practice it as an art form. Though his life is short, it is fascinating and I was surprised I hadn't heard of him before picking up this book, especially since he caught the attention of Charles Dickens and was even mentioned by Dickens in one of his books, "American Notes."

Myers really captured the spirit and passion of Juba for dance and for making more out of his life through art. It was interesting to trace Juba's path through various productions and see him grow and yet still not make it as big as he should have. There is some really important discussion of race in early America. One of Juba's friends, who is a free African-American, gets captured and sold back into slavery. Juba is continuously confronted by his skin color and often asked to "coon it up" when he dances because that is the expected idea of what an African-American is like, that is what the audience wants to see. This would be a good school read, I think, to show a particular slice of American history and to teach about race relations in America.

All in all, it was very illuminating and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in African-American history and to anyone who is not familiar enough with African-American history. This is a very important read, in my opinion. Please give it a look.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fine, if dry. It seemed a lightly-sketched fictional take on Juba's life. I have to wonder if there's a dearth of historical data or if Myers wasn't able to put as much detail as he wanted into it. Either way, it's skimpy on the details, minus an excruciating blow by blow of a show that Juba puts together early on, and worse somehow how fails to make a connection to how much he influenced dance.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel somewhat sad that this was Myers' last offering - not to say that it's bad, I just wish he'd had time for one more contemporary read. This book, however, is poignant for more reasons than as Myers' last, however - and good for a younger reader as well, though the n* word is used, appropriately for the historical time period, a few times.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just didn't connect with this one. I have a feeling I was missing some things by listening to the audio as opposed to reading the book, although the audiobook narrator was entertaining to listen to.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review has more to do with the audiobook than it does with the story. I probably would have awarded the book more stars if I had read the book instead of listening to it.

I started listening to audiobooks more than a decade ago. They help me save time, because I can listen to a book while I'm driving; but more importantly, a good narrator adds an extra dimension to a well-written book. One of the disadvantages is that it's easy to miss important details in the narration.

I totally missed two pieces of information in the first chapter, and that that lead to a lot of confusion because of the way the narrator handled the dialogue spoken by two characters.

A good narrator will use different voices for dialogue by different characters to help the listener keep track of who is saying what. The narrator did that BUT the accent he used for some of the characters didn't clearly portray who they were. Because of the accent he used, I thought two characters were African-American when they were actually Irish. This meant that importance of the conversations he had with those characters was lost to me. Instead of adding to my understanding of the book, the narration diminished my appreciation of the importance of what was being related.

I thought that, perhaps, the narrator simply had a narrow range of accents until the last quarter of the book when several characters spoke with English accents that varied enough to indicate class and geographical origin.

I hesitated about raising the issue of the accents used by the different characters because I was afraid that someone might consider me to be racist to expect Irish characters to sound Irish instead of African-American. I decided to mention it because the lack of distinction in voice hid the fact that the 5 corners area, where the story began, was a culturally and racially diverse neighbourhood. More importantly, in the story that Myers wrote, some of the Irish and African-American residents worked together to showcase the dancing skills of both groups.

The story was inspiring. The execution of the narration less-so.

[Kay Iscah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I both appreciate and struggle with historical fiction. I feel underqualified to judge it. For real figures I generally prefer documentaries and nonfiction, but I can appreciate the desire to breath life into history by connecting the dots. And I do appreciate the shared research in photos, news clippings, and historical notes.

Add onto that this one deals with the difficult topic of black performers in Minstrel shows. I do love the energy of Juba in the first half of the book. Generally through out I feel like Juba is a believable character, there are times I feel that he's a little simplified, particularly in his motivations and relationship with his wife. And they get to the night of his first big show without mentioning rehearsals before casually mentioning rehearsals...that felt tacked on. The author shied away from physical interaction between the two (I'm glad for the lack of sex scenes...but something beyond dialogue would have been nice), and just casually mentions them living together before marriage, which would have been scandalous in that era of London, even though the theatre was expected to break more social norms... If he was as worried about her reputation as suggested, he wouldn't have been living with her....and given that this portion of their relationship was invented, it felt a bit disrespectful and out of time period. Having a hasty marriage so they could live together would have felt more period.

The ending is sad, but it's like the titanic sinking, can't really spin it into a happy one, not easily anyway. But I still fell like there were missed opportunities, so the 4 out of 5.

**Note** It looks like this book was published posthumously, and I strongly suspect that's why it feels like it's missing something. Myers had enough to clean up and publish but didn't get the chance to go through all the drafts one might normally.

[Lisa Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really pleased with this book! I bought it because the cover made me smile & I was not disappointed. Master Juba is William Henry Lane’s nickname & he is a brilliant dancer. But, he’s a Black man. He lives in the free north but, as we are all well aware, opportunities for Black men were limited, even in the north.

The story goes through his struggles with wanting to be a dancer, something he LOVES to do, but also wanting to make a living & be respected in his profession. He doesn’t want to be a minstrel dancer or “coon it up” as the white folks want him to. Interestingly, Charles Dickens sees Juba perform in NYC when Dickens is there in 1842 & speaks highly of the young dancer. He even mentions Juba in his travelogue, American Notes.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Juba ends up performing with a troupe out in London, falls in love with a white woman, & stays in England till his death.

There were three things I really enjoyed about this book:

1️⃣Juba’s positive attitude & the pure joy he felt when getting to perform & making the audience happy.

2️⃣Certain parts of this book had me tapping my foot & bobbing my head to the beat. I could feel the music through the pages!

3️⃣The historical bits. The book was well-researched & seeing things like old marketing posters & newspaper articles was really cool.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

i enjoyed this!! this was a quick audiobook read (~5 hours) and i finished it in one day because of a long car ride. i feel like this book started out pretty strong but i got less invested toward the finish. around the 60%-70% point of this book, i fell asleep a few times and had to keep rewinding. this was really because i had gotten like 5 hours asleep, but the entertainment quality at that point in the book was still a factor.

i think the highlight of this book was the commentary on blackface. before reading this, i knew blackface was a huge no-no, but i didn't know a lot of its history. Juba's experience with blackface made me so upset. the fact that he had to go along with blackface because it was a norm for black performers at the time was heartbreaking. i hate how dehumanizing it is. i'm glad i picked up this book because now I have a better understanding of this horrible thing that was so prevalent back then and unfortunately people still do today.

[Tatyana Vogt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not going to lie, I've had this on my shelf for a while and had very little interest in picking it up. I only did because I am doing the a-z title challenge in 2022 and I hadn't read anything with a J yet and this was the only thing I owned that fit the bill...

All that to say, I LOVED it. new favorite. Getting this historically inspired slice of life of a free black dancer in the 1800's was just fascinating. Seeing some of the historical documents that inspired the story and learning a little bit about this real life man in this fictional story was really enjoyable and I really can help but hope that the real man had a bright light to him as the story version did. Surprisingly enjoyable considering the topic, and SUPER relatable in terms of the struggling artist.

i loved it so much more than I would have ever imagined!

[Marianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Audiobooksync.com for giving this audio book away during their YA summer reading program.

I really enjoyed listening to Juba. It was well written and extremely entertaining. It was realistic - and that made it very relatable and personal. While the ending had me crying, it was reality and what happened.

I truly enjoyed learning about the life of Juba and knowing that this novel was based on the true story of Master Juba and his influences on what we know today about dance made the novel that much more real and important to me.

While I listened to this novel, I wish I would have had the physical book instead as I missed out on the extra materials that are within the actual novel (pictures, afterward, etc.)...

I would definitely purchase this book for myself and for friends. It is a piece of history that is retold extremely well. I highly recommend it to all.

Happy Reading and Enjoy!

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great historical read for young readers. I would not call the prose the most intriguing, but the historical facts combined with contextualization would make this a great classroom read. Juba! covers the adult life of the innovative dancer William Henry Lane and his short-lived fame. The author includes interactions with other real historical figures including Charles Dickens and does a great job giving insight into life in the Five Points Neighborhood in the mid 1800s. I also like how the author includes the inner turmoil faced by black artists of the time who needed to "shuck and jive" to make money in front of white audiences. I think this would be a great read for kids ten and up and would open some interesting discussion.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Juba is a fictionalized historical account of the life of William Henry Lane, a free black teen living in the Five Points section of New York City while slavery still existed in the United States. Lane went by the stage name of Master Juba and scrambled to become a professional dancer, not simply a minstrel show performer. He became known as Boz's Juba after a chance encounter with Charles Dickens. Dickens wrote about Juba in his book American Notes and this led to Juba being offered a chance to tour and dance professionally in England. The author'fs widow Constance Myers provides an epilogue about the writing of the book. The book includes much primary source material -- photographs, copies of playbills, and reviews. Published posthumously.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting true story of a dancer from New York - a free black man in a country where he could be grabbed off the street and sold into slavery. This happened to a friend of his, and encouraged his staying on in England after his tour there ended. While much of Juba's story is pleasant, the dangers and difficulties of his life are very sad, especially in light of the current racial unrest in America. It's heartbreaking to realize how the deep seated ideas of racial superiority have poisoned our world for hundreds of years. Perhaps books like this can help the next generation to finally overcome that ridiculous idea.

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't even imagine a middle grade student reading this book. There's very little background or description of Five Points. The pace is excruciatingly slow...until all of a sudden two years pass in one short paragraph. Don't blink, or you'll miss two years! It picks up a little when Juba gets to England, but so many missed opportunities to describe the crossing, the city of London, the rest of the people in the Serenaders, working conditions, lodging conditions - really anything that would fill in the so many, many holes in this story. And finally, how many middle grade students know what a "workhouse" is? Yeah, unfortunately I can't recommend this one.

[Casey Quick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting novelization of the life of William Henry Lane, (aka "Juba") who is a young African American dancer trying to make his way in New York City in the 1840s. It is fascinating that Myers was able to create this story from real artifacts about Lane's life, including newspaper clippings, posters and the writings of Charles Dickens. I enjoy that he gives voice to a strong character who may be unknown to many, but who showed extraordinary talent and courage in the face of great adversity and racial struggle.