"[1] In June 2011, Hill received an email from a man in the Netherlands who said he and others planned to burn the book because they objected to the title (translated as Het negerboek in Dutch).

On 22 June 2011, they burned copies of the book’s cover in Amsterdam in front of the National Slavery Monument (Dutch: Slavernijmonument).

[2][3][4][5] Aminata Diallo, the daughter of a jeweller and a midwife, is kidnapped at the age of 11 from her village Bayo, Niger[6] in West Africa and forced to walk for three months to the sea in a coffle, a line of prisoners chained together, with hundreds of strangers and a handful of people from her village.

Seeing her intelligence and potential, a fellow Muslim slave named Mamed secretly teaches her to read and write.

Aminata is handed over to a Jewish man named Solomon Lindo who moves her to Charles Town, unaware of where her child may be.

Shortly after, Aminata is once again reunited with Chekura, who has found out that Lindo helped arrange the selling of their son Mamadu who he has been told died.

Because of her ability to read and write as well as her fluency in two African languages, Aminata is also hired to help record names in the book.

While doing this work she is reunited for a few months with Chekura, who also served the British; they plan to resettle in Nova Scotia together and she becomes pregnant with their second child.

The matter is resolved when Lindo appears in court, explaining the situation and simultaneously setting Aminata free.

Aminata arrives in Shelburne and begins to work in the black community of Birchtown, where she meets Jason, a young fellow whom she listed in the "Book of Negroes", and Daddy Moses (the "Preacher").

A young British naval officer named Captain John Clarkson comes to the black Birchtown communities, promising a better land reserved for them in Sierra Leone.

As an old woman, she finds herself taking a voyage one more time to England to present the account of her life, so it may help abolish the slave trade.

The book received a 87% from The Lit Review based on seventeen critics, with the consensus being, "An incredible, award-winning work of historical fiction; a must read!".

[9][10] The mini-series stars Aunjanue Ellis as Aminata, Lyriq Bent as Chekura, Cuba Gooding Jr, Louis Gossett Jr., Ben Chaplin, Allan Hawco, and Jane Alexander.