Can we trust TBAS?

I think that a lot the information in "To Be a Slave" can be trusted. The information is from little exerts from previous books about slavery. Julius Lester even credited the person and the page number from the book he used. And some of the information was gotten from the survivors from the African slavery period.
The author himself is also trusted. Not only is it because the book was published in the first place, but Lester has won a lot of writing awards, so it looks like he can be trusted with his writing. And in this particular book, Julius Lester won the Newbery Honor award.