DescriptionFifteen-year-old Amari witnesses the murder of her family and the destruction of her remote African village. She endures countless humiliations as she is beaten, branded, and forced to board a slave ship. The atrocities continue as she struggles through endless days of backbreaking work and daily degradation on a plantation. Somehow, through it all, Amari's hopes and dreams survive, because there are moments of kindness from an indentured white girl, Polly, and the gentle wife of the plantation owner. Amari and Polly find that by working together, freedom could be possible. In this well-researched novel, award-winning author and educator Sharon M. Draper successfully embarks upon historical fiction to explore plantation life.
DescriptionSet in the 1850s, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton speaks to you in a splendidly quirky voice: the strong, wry, no-nonsense voice of Lidie Harkness of Quincy, Illinois, a young woman of courage, good sense, and good heart. It carries you into an America so violently torn apart by the question of slavery that it makes our current political battlegrounds seem a peaceable kingdom. Lidie grows increasingly important to you as you follow her travels and adventures on the feverish eve of the War Between the States. With its crackling portrayal of a totally individual and wonderfully articulate woman, its storytelling drive, and its powerful recapturing of an almost forgotten part of the American story, Jane Smiley is at her enthralling and enriching best.
DescriptionSet in 19th century Charleston, South Carolina, The Dark Sun Rises is an inspirational work of historical fiction. With impeccable attention to detail and a strong conviction in God, Williamson leads the listener into the complex world of slavery.
DescriptionStaring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but 18 years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement. Toni Morrison is the Robert F. Goheen Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She lives in Rockland County, New York, and Princeton, New Jersey.
DescriptionUncle Tom is a high-minded, devoutly Christian black slave in an "humane" Southern family, the Shelbys. But, when the Shelbys are beset by financial difficulties, Tom is sold to a heartless slave trader. Young George Shelby promises to someday redeem him. This story, set in Kentucky and Louisiana, describes Uncle Tom's trials, suffering, and religious fortitude. Uncle Tom's Cabin is an overwhelmingly powerful novel, hailed by Tolstoy as "one of the greatest productions of the human mind." When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he said, "So this is the little lady who made this big war." Combining the elements of contemporary humor and sentimental fiction to dramatize the plight of African-Americans, this story's anti-slavery theme was a major contribution to the abolitionist movement.
