“The ease. Us, the children … I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.”
Title: Kindred
Title: Kindred
Author: Octavia E. Butler
First Published: 1979
Language: English
Pages: 287
Summary:
Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given: to protect this young slaveholder until he can father her own great-grandmother.
Review:
What a remarkable novel this was.
I still, after reading and seeing so much about it, can’t wrap my head around slavery. How could anyone with a beating heart treat human beings as awfully as some white people used to treat black people. How could they not feel guilty after hurting them as badly as they did. Separating families by selling them to multiple buyers. I mean, selling other human beings? No. I cannot and will never be able to wrap my head around it.
This book was certainly fascinating as I haven’t read anything like it. Even though it’s about time travel, the story felt as real as my own fingers typing this review right now. The protagonist of the book, Dana, experienced everything as a stranger because she is from the nineteenth century. However, being an African-American woman herself, people treated her as a slave when she went back in time. That makes it possible for the reader to grasp the idea of slavery in a way that it is very factual. Every night since I have started reading this book, I dreamed about it. That’s how much this story has affected me.
From a teacher’s perspective, I believe pupils should be required to read this to get to know more about this issue. It’s written in such a way that it’s very accessible to many ages in my opinion. So, what I’m trying to say is, please read this book. You won’t regret it.
I still, after reading and seeing so much about it, can’t wrap my head around slavery. How could anyone with a beating heart treat human beings as awfully as some white people used to treat black people. How could they not feel guilty after hurting them as badly as they did. Separating families by selling them to multiple buyers. I mean, selling other human beings? No. I cannot and will never be able to wrap my head around it.
This book was certainly fascinating as I haven’t read anything like it. Even though it’s about time travel, the story felt as real as my own fingers typing this review right now. The protagonist of the book, Dana, experienced everything as a stranger because she is from the nineteenth century. However, being an African-American woman herself, people treated her as a slave when she went back in time. That makes it possible for the reader to grasp the idea of slavery in a way that it is very factual. Every night since I have started reading this book, I dreamed about it. That’s how much this story has affected me.
From a teacher’s perspective, I believe pupils should be required to read this to get to know more about this issue. It’s written in such a way that it’s very accessible to many ages in my opinion. So, what I’m trying to say is, please read this book. You won’t regret it.
Rating: ★★★★★
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