Wow, wow, wow. Holy friggin' moly, is this book good. It's gut-wrenching--made me feel angry, sorrowful, solemn, dejected--and made me hate White people. And I'm White. (Well, not all White people. Just mean, racist ones).Copper Sun weaves together the stories of Amari, a teenaged African girl stolen from her homeland (after she witnesses the slaughter of her family/village), and Polly, a White teenaged girl who is an indentured servant. Polly must pay off the indenture of her deceased parents. Amari and Polly are thrown together on Mr. Derby's plantation in South Carolina. Mr. Derby tells Polly she must teach Amari how to speak English and, at first, Polly is appalled that she must work with a slave and not serve in the "big house." Slowly, however, the two become friends, and as Polly witnesses the brutality and violence of slave-life, she becomes an ally to Amari and other slaves on the plantation. Amari and the other slaves start to see, too, that not all Whites have it so good, although as Amari reminds Polly, she could escape whenever she wanted to and not lose her life for it. Amari reminds Polly throughout the novel that, while they have some things in common, Polly's skin color will always protect her.
Sharon Draper says she spent years doing research for this novel, and I believe it. The story feels unapologetically authentic--it doesn't skimp on the details of the brutal acts committed in the name of slavery, especially those against African women who were sex toys to their White masters by night and chattel by day. A student in my YA class read Copper Sun last year and said the book made her "feel" what slavery must have been like. Like me, she was emotionally impacted by the story--it's got an impact like Toni Morrison's Beloved, a classic contemporary slave narrative that you continue to think about for a long time after the last page is turned.
You can see Sharon Draper's website here: http://sharondraper.com/
Reviews of Copper Sun are here http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/0689821816.asp
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6298133.html
You can also learn more about the Coretta Scott King book awards here: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/rts/emiert/cskbookawards/about.cfm
If you're looking for something to read on this July 4th weekend, consider Copper Sun.
Yes, this book is powerful. It was the required summer reading for local rising 10th graders last year, so we taught it through the summer reading program.
ReplyDeleteMy students--most of them native Alabamians--said they learned more about slavery from Draper's book than they had in all of their English and history courses to date (which, to me, says a pitiful lot about how we whitewash history, no pun intended).
It is one of my all time favorite novels--and I hear that some local history teachers are going to use it in their history classes! YAY for including YA literature in the curriculum.