Roots by Alex Haley
Roots, which is written by Alex Haley is undoubtedly the best, heart-warming book I have ever read. It is the story of Kunta Kinte, who is from Africa. He is an extremely brave, loyal young man from a small village, Juffure, in The Gambia.
He has turned 17 and was very excited because he has become a man. But unfortunately, things did not turn out the way he would like it to be. One day, while he was out chopping wood to make a drum, he was abducted and sent on a slave ship to the New World to become a slave.
In America, a John Waller, who treated him like dirt, bought him. Kunta tried to escape 4 times but he was caught and finally, the slave-catchers cut off his right foot. He was then sold to John Waller’s brother, a doctor who treated his slaves better.
Kunta got married and had a daughter, Kizzy. She was taken from her parents to become a slave to another master. He used her for his own pleasure and she had a mulatto baby, George. George grew up to be fighting cock trainer. He got married and had kids, too. So, the story goes on until Alex Haley was born.
When he was a young boy, he would hear stories of Kunta Kinte, who claimed he was from Africa and was also very proud of his homeland. Then, Alex Haley set out to find out the true story of Kunta and his history. It took him 12 years to complete the book.
Really, read it for yourself and you will learn a lot. It made me appreciate that I have my family with me now and I have no one torturing me till I bleed, half-dead, and practically losing hope of ever getting the chance to be free again. This book deserves 5 out of 5 stars!
I read this book in 2004. One of my teachers recommended this book to me in 2000 but I put off reading it as it’s such a thick book! Anyway, it took me 3 whole weeks to finish it.
Buy Roots: The Saga of an American Family
February 20th, 2007 at 8:33 am
hello there! i have been checking out on your blog occasionally….
i like reading as well and i enjoyed reading your book reviews!
anyway, keep up the good work and happy cny/holidays!
February 21st, 2007 at 4:27 am
jingz: Hi there, thank you very much! Keep coming and Happy Chinese New Year to you too.
dodong: Oh, it’s definitely a good book. It’s an eye-opener. Must read it soon.
bengbeng: I’m not quite sure if Alex Haley wrote any more books. If there are, I’ll try to get them, read them, and write reviews. Thanks for visiting!
February 20th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
From the synopsis alone, I think that’s a good book. I probably would add that to my wishlist in Amazon
February 21st, 2007 at 12:01 am
I read the book years years ago..and the subsequent sequels as long as it was written by Alex Haley, I would search for it. A great read..Roots
April 21st, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I am a senior in high school and we are currently in the process of writing an argumentative research paper dealing with anything in literature. I am in the process of reading “Roots” and I chose to base my paper off of it, arguing that it should be included within the reading requirements for high school students. I am having trouble finding some good supportive information. Any ideas?
April 25th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Roots101: Hi, I’m glad to know that you feel Roots should be a reading requirement. It’s certainly an informative story and students could learn a lot from it. However, it is said that this book is kind of like a ‘faction’, a mix of fact and fiction. Haley probably made some things up.
Hmm…I think you should do lots of research on your paper. On the Internet, in the library…there should be quite a lot of points that you can find!
Ask yourself first, why do you think that it would be good for high school kids? What can they learn from it? How is Roots different from other books? How can they apply or relate the story of Roots to real life?
I’m sorry but that’s all the help I can give! I’m not that good at writing research papers myself! =/
If you like, you can update me on your research. I’m sure it’ll be a very interesting paper.