Ain't Nobody a Stranger to Me

Ain't Nobody a Stranger to Me, by Ann Grifalconi

This book is about a grandfather and his granddaughter, taking a stroll through town, and the grandfather telling his granddaughter about what it was like when he was a slave. However, while most books are about just how the slaves found their way to freedom, this one tells about how his experience in finding freedom changed him forever. In the story, he walks through town waving and saying hello to everyone, and the little girl asks him why, he says that he does that because "both me and my heart is free." That is one thing that I liked about this book. People go through life experiences and while they change us one way or another, they change us forever. This powerful book really shows the importance of looking deeper into these life experiences, and with that in mind, I would really want my students to observe their own life experiences and recognize what they have learned from these experiences. This is also a book with such good morals to teach students, including, no matter how bad things are, they could always be worse, and making them more aware of our history and the lives of people around them.