For Lamb could have been the story of any of the young girls or women who were among the over 500 Black people lynched in Mississippi. But For Lamb tells the story of a sweet 16 year-old-girl, Lamb and her family. Lamb is quiet, studious, and helpful, but she's also too trusting. It's that naivety that causes her and her family trouble when Lamb befriends a white girl. That trouble soon blooms into tragedy.

As I've said in many of my historical fiction reviews, I don't read a lot of historical fiction, but the ones I love best are the ones that teach me something (like Mississippi's horrific lynching statistic). But not only that, but in For Lamb, Cline-Ransome creates a character in Lamb that you just can't help but love. This is a heartbreaking but beautifully constructed story, and if you can stomach some difficult history then I definitely recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ALC. I really enjoyed the full-cast narration by Tyla Collier; Kevin R. Free; Rebecca Lee; Jaime Lincoln Smith; Dion Graham, and Angel Pean. The emotion just oozed out of their voices making the story that much more wonderful.

They could not have picked better narrators. This team was perfect for every role they played. Listening to this was an entire experience.
I think books like this should be required reading for my fellow white ladies. This is real relatable and recent history we aren't taught. We need this. We need to feel this.
My heart was so completely broken. Lamb is a good and innocent and all she does is allow another girl her age to talk to her, basically. I know my grandmothers had black friends here in Ogden in that same time period (I have their photos) and I never thought about what it was like for those girls. At least the schools here weren't completely segregated.
Anyway - Read it.

Thank you to Net Galley and Holiday House for access to an advance reader copy of For Lamb. I also was able to receive access to the audiobook from Dreamscape Media. Below is my honest review of the book/audiobook.

For Lamb is set in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1930s with the story told from multiple first-person POVs. Lamb and her older brother, Simeon are the primary voices of most chapters. Lamb is very appropriately named as she is soft spoken, sweet with a beautiful voice. Simeon is a studious, young man with aspirations of going north and living a free life.

Lamb and Simeon live with their mother, Marion. Marion works as a seamstress and a closeted lesbian. Although there’s no mistaking the bond between the three of them, Lamb often finds herself as the peacemaker with her mother and brother. She struggles with having aspirations of her own and appeasing her mother and brother.

Despite the sweet disposition of the children, mom has a hardened exterior, raising the children with the fear instilled in her during her childhood. I would’ve loved a bit more exploration of that along with her emotions surrounding her sexual orientation. I have to remind myself that this is tagged as YA and LGBTQ+. The story very easily works for adults.

This book will stay with me as it provides a glimpse although a fictional one into the time period during which my great grandmother and grandmother lived. I will read more works from this author.

**I was truly appreciative of the audiobook as the unedited eARC version proved challenging in navigating the changing POVs.**

#ForLamb #NetGalley

This was a beautiful listen. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but the collection of vignettes wove together Lamb’s story beautifully. It captured the feeling I had the first time I read Mildred D. Taylor: moments in a distant childhood so different than mine, but still somehow reminiscent of the universal Black experience. The balance of the everyday and the breathtakingly tragic was a carefully threaded needle, similar to Taylor in that way as well. Not gratuitous, but arresting.

For Lamb is a slow-paced historical YA about Lamb and her family in 1930s Jackson, Mississippi. I loved all the narrative voices used in the writing and each character was impressively distinct. While this story does cover the topic of lynching, it does so with sensitivity, which I believe makes it perfect for the intended young adult audience as well as an older audience. This is not an easy read, but it is a read that will stick with me for a long time.