In this book, 10 slaves tell, in their own words, stories of their childhood and teenage years. They include Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Harriet Jacobs, and Elizabeth Keckley, who would later become famous, as well as others whose narratives have long been forgotten. In reading their tales, you'll see exactly what it was like to be a slave - from the passage in slave ships across the Atlantic, to daily life both on large plantations and in small city homes, to escaping slavery and even fighting in the Civil War.