In The Undefeated, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, an important aspect of American history is depicted: the Black experience. The book tells an extremely powerful story of grit, perseverance, and progress. Children, as they read books, “[learn] about our nation’s fraught past” (Thomas 6). The spread on pages seventeen through eighteen deals with a very tragic topic in history: slavery.

On pages seventeen through eighteen, a somber and overwhelming image is depicted. Humans are shown laying or standing in cramped rows. The image almost looks like the hull of a boat which could be a reference to the Middle Passage where Black people were forcibly stolen from Africa and transported in horrid conditions to the Americas where they were enslaved. The text of the page reads, “This is for the unspeakable,” (Kwame and Nelson 17-18) helping readers who may not understand the context of the image to glean the sadness behind what is happening on the page.

In the article, “Much Ado about a ‘Fine Dessert’: The Cultural Politics of Representing Slavery in Children’s Literature,” the scandal behind the book Fine Dessert is discussed in detail. The book was criticized for its sugarcoated and inaccurate depiction of slavery. The article states that “People of Color don’t have the luxury of being able to sugarcoat history to our children, and when we do, people die…” (Thomas 11). The Undefeated does the opposite of what A Fine Dessert did: it shows historical truth. Not sacrificing historical truth is possible. While the pages in The Undefeated tell the difficult history of slavery in an accurate way, the page feels almost hopeful. The pages are almost like a memorial to the events that took place.

As the article states, “the role of literature is to tell us the difficult truths” (Thomas 11). The spread in The Undefeated tells a difficult truth without making it traumatizing for its readers and without sacrificing the horrifying facts of slavery, unlike A Fine Dessert.

Word Count: 322

Works Cited:

Alexander, Kwame, and Kadir Nelson. The Undefeated. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

Thomas, Ebony Elizabeth, et al. “Much Ado about a ‘Fine Dessert’: The Cultural Politics of Representing Slavery in Children’s Literature.” Journal of Children’s Literature, vol. 42, no. 2, Jan. 2016, pp. 6–17. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1119087&site=eds-live&scope=site.