I picked up this book as something to listen to when I was decorating the spare room, and while this wasn’t an easy listen, I definitely learnt a lot.

We never really learned about American history at school, so although this book was aimed at a younger age range, it was the perfect level for me. Starting with the civil war, the book takes you through the history of black America leading to the founding of the NAACP.

Despite the intended audience, the history is presented factually and without hiding some of the worst parts. I genuinely found myself getting upset at points listening to this book and realising how recent a lot of it was, and then obviously thinking of what’s currently going on in America right now.

I see from the other reviews that the book includes lots of photos etc and obviously this wasn’t included with it being an audiobook. I think I would benefit from reading this as an actual book rather than just listening to it, because with there being so many facts in there it was a lot to take in without being able to re-read paragraphs.

I’d love to read more non-fiction books like this, it’s only be learning about world history that we can be aware enough to avoid repeating it.

And I’d just like to say that the narrator was fantastic, really clear and easy to understand and a voice that made me want to keep listening, which was very important given the difficult subject matter.