PITY THE POOR "CONCERNED PARENTS":

Born on the Water opens with a familiar classroom assignment: making a family tree. A young Black girl is depicted with a look of dismay on her face. In the background, faint sketches of children holding up their ancestors' countries' flags with big smiles can be seen. The contrast of their glee with her distress is a testament to the evocative nature of Smith's paintings. "Most of my classmates can count back many generations," the girl reflects, "and learn about the countries where their families came from. They draw their flags, but I leave my paper blank. I do not know where I begin, what my story is."

This is an appropriate place to begin telling the story of slavery for young readers. Long before they learn about slavery in a formal way in history classes (where instructors, as we know, sometimes struggle to teach about the topic), children are informally introduced to slavery from other sources, such as picture books, television programs, and conversations with family. Hannah-Jones, Watson, and Smith begin Born on the Water in a contemporary elementary school classroom, with a lesson on family that many students will find familiar, but that this girl's teacher didn't intend to use as a way into the topic of slavery. Like many younger kids in real life, the fictional protagonist has come up against the history of slavery in a roundabout way.

How should this little girl begin her project? What's her family background and identity?  She asks her grandmother to tell her the story of their beginnings. One page turn later, we're transported back in time.

"They say our people were born on the water, but our people had a home, a place, a land before they were sold," the grandmother says. This evocative reference to the Black Atlantic reframes where the story of Black America truly begins. It is neither in our African origins, nor on the slave ships, auction blocks, and plantations.

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