I got away scot-free last week, but this week I returned to my roots. Well, someone's roots anyhow.

Blawg Review is off to a great start this year, with five very strong editions right out of the gate. I posted about the first few before spending much of last week away from the online world. During that week away, I did take some time to read the excellent Blawg Review #248 at The Scots Law Student blog, celebrating poet Robert Burns' birthday; if you've not yet seen it, you certainly should.

This week, Omar Ha-Redeye hosts Blawg Review #249 at Slaw.ca. He builds his review around a book which made a powerful impression on him, Alex Haley's Roots; I've never read the book, but I did watch the award-winning miniseries several years ago and found it very moving, notwithstanding the plagiarism and fictionalization issues which dogged both the series and the book in later years. The struggles of those in Roots have echoes both in the lives of today's African-Americans (or Canadians, as the case may be) and in the lives of others around the world who are enslaved or abused by human traffickers. Ha-Redeye notes that this month started (in the United States) with National Freedom Day and is designated as both Black History Month and National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. He includes posts relating specifically to those topics and more generally to broader legal topics in this week's edition of the carnival of legal blogging.

In coming weeks, Blawg Review will stay north of the border, with Canadians hosting the next several editions. Antonin Pribetic is up first, hosting Blawg Review #250 at The Trial Warrior Blog.