“When Kunta came to, he was up on deck, amazed to find himself still alive. The orange lights, moving about, made him think at first they were still below. Then he took a deep breath and realized it was fresh air. He lay sprawled on his back, which was exploding with pains so terrible that he couldn’t stop crying, even in front of the toubob.”

The book “Roots” by Alex Haley is a biographical story about the author’s African ancestors that begins in the year 1750 and continues until the book was published in 1976. From a village in the Gambia, Kunta Kinte was abducted during the early American slave trade and sold to a cotton plantation owner. The novel chronicles Kunta’s harrowing journey across the Atlantic Ocean, and his life of slavery on the plantation as well as the lives of his children. A descendant of Kunta’s escapes that brutal way of life by stealing his “freedom papers” that had been promised to him but never given.

I read “Roots” for the first time when I was a teenager, of my own volition, and believed this was going to be one of the best books I will ever read. Twenty years later, I was right – this is still one of the best books I have ever read. I feel that every American school student (and every American adult) should be required to read this novel – it opens the eye and mind to an important, and admittedly horrific, period of our history.

Jennifer, Books on Broadway

*This book is available at Books on Broadway*

Tags: Alex Haley, Book Reviews, Roots