Two Quotations in The Book of Negroes

"Mama was brought to meet Papa" was a quote that stood out to me because I can relate to these characters about the fact that things happen the way they happen for a reason.

"I became adept at that, and Mama said it was good to have me along because my hands were so small" was another quote that stood out to me because the last part of this quote is quite similar to the title of the particular chapter.

ISU Book Summary

The ISU Book that is currently being read is called, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. The objective of this assignment is to compare and contrast this novel to The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. The Secret Life of Bees is a story that talks about a 14-year old girl named Lily Owens, who leaves home from her mean father and takes the housekeeper, Rosaleen, of the residence with her after Rosaleen was in the hospital for getting beat up by the police. The reason for escape was for Lily to find out more information and the truth about her mother from when Lily was a little girl. Lily thinks that she was brainwashed by her father, T-Ray, who said that her mother was killed when Lily accidentally fired a bullet at her. Her and Rosaleen leave to go to Tiburon, South Carolina because when Lily had a picture of her mother and the Black Virgin Mary, the location was on the back of the picture. She wants to prove to T-Ray that he lied about what happened from when she was a little child, and so she looks for clues while in Tiburon. This story relates to The Book of Negroes because they both have a common theme of Mothers.

Post #3

Post #3 - The title "The Book of Negroes" is in my opinion the line that cannot be crossed. I could understand the Dutch group disliking of the title, but I don't find it necessary to burn the cover of the book either. It isn't a bad title, but it's just a word that just doesn't quite fit in, despite that these powerful words unfortunately get used rather frequently in today's society. Knowing that the book is based on the day to day life of Aminata Diallo, I believe a good title could be something as simple as 'The Life of Aminata' or usually a title derives from a quote in the story such as, "Someone Knows My Name", which is what the story is called in some countries.

Post #2

Post # 2 - The essay that I liked the best was the suitcase lady because the fact that it talks about the life of a poor person, it relates to a real life situation. When I read real life situation stories, I can take a lot of valuable life lessons out of them. Reading this essay made me realize how lucky I am to have a home and family and food. There was one sentence in the essay that really stood out to me: "Somewhere in her bleary eyes and in the deep lines of her face is a story that probably no one will ever know. She is taking pains to write something on a notepad and crying steadily."

Post #1 - To begin with, my major interests include rowing, weightlifting, CrossFit, reading comic books, watching movies, listening to music, playing video games, and drawing pictures. I like working out a lot because I like being fit and I also find that it also clears my mind when I'm about to read and so  I find it to be good preparation. My particular interests for literature include short novels, short stories, and as mentioned before, comics. I don't necessarily find it interesting to read longer books because it would take more than one day to complete and it makes it more difficult for me to 'recap' on stuff from previous days. It's too much work to remember for me. Although I do like the amount of detail that's in the longer books.