Nearer My Freedom
About the Webinar
This Children's Africana Book Award Webinar, part of the Global Read Webinar Series, took place on February 27, 2025 at 7 pm EST with a presentation by Lesley Younge, author of Nearer My Freedom.
About the Book
Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge transform Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography into an accessible verse format in Nearer My Freedom. Designed for classroom use, the book condenses and reworks Equiano’s words while preserving their emotional impact. The authors enhance understanding by integrating frequent contextual essays, helping students engage with historical themes. They also reveal their editorial process, showing how they adapted Equiano’s prose into poetry. This innovative approach makes Equiano’s story more approachable while raising thought-provoking questions about historical storytelling. Nearer My Freedom is a valuable tool for educators and a compelling introduction to Equiano’s life.
About the Author
Lesley Younge is an educator and writer from Silver Spring, Maryland. She currently teaches middle school English in Washington D.C at Maret (Mah-ray) School. This is her 19th year in the classroom. Lesley debuted as an author in 2023 with two books for young people. Nearer My Freedom (co-authored with her mentor Monica Edinger) is an award winning YA verse novel remix of British abolitionist Olaudah Equiano’s seminal autobiography. A-Train Allen, her first picture book, was an inaugural Own Voices, Own Stories Grand Prize Winner awarded by Sleeping Bear Press. Also a poet, Lesley’s work has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Midnight & Indigo, Full Bleed, and others, including Poetry magazine’s newest issue featuring poems for young people. Lesley blogs and shares resources at teacherlesley.com.
Watch the Webinar
About the Global Read Webinar Series
Once a month, the World Area Book Awards (Américas Award, Children's Africana Book Award, Freeman Book Award, Middle East Book Award, and the South Asia Book Award) sponsor a 60 minute webinar on a book recognized by one of the awards. The series of webinars is called Global Read Webinar Series. Each webinar features a presentation by an award-winning author with discussion on how to incorporate multicultural literature into the classroom. All sessions are free and open to the public.
The Children's Africana Book Awards is sponsored by the Outreach Council of the African Studies Association. The Center for African Studies at Howard University is the institutional base for the Awards.