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Fifteen-year-old Amari loves life in her home village in Africa. She spends her days strolling along the stream, daydreaming about her handsome future husband, teasing her little brother, and avoiding chores. But everything changes the day the pale-faced visitors arrive.
Everyone contributes for the celebration to welcome the strangers. Amari helps her mother arrange the food, her storyteller father shares his tales, her fiancé plays his drum, and everyone dances. But then their world shatters as the strangers begin killing the adults and young children. Amari stands stunned as her parents drop dead from gunfire. Her little brother urges her to run into the jungle for safety; they try, only for Amari to be captured and her brother to be shot dead.
The nightmare continues as Amari and the other young people find themselves chained together and forced to walk for days. At the coast, Amari views the ocean for the first time and most of her friends for the last time. Packed tightly into ships, Amari's people endure horrific conditions: hunger, thirst, sickness, lying in their own waste, and rape. More die and are tossed overboard, but Amari survives with encouragement from a woman named Afi, who tells Amari that she has to live; Amari has a purpose in life and she must find hope. But hope is the last thing to be found on a slave ship, and that is what Amari has become --- a slave.
Upon arrival in America, Amari is sold to the highest bidder, a rice grower wanting a birthday present for his son. Soon Amari meets Polly, a white girl indentured to the same rice grower. The two girls from different ends of the earth bond together in order to survive, and their friendship just might help them fight their way to freedom.
Sharon Draper is the granddaughter of a former slave, so this tale must hold a special place in her heart. She tells the story of Amari with such powerful description that it almost feels as if the reader was right there in the nightmare. It is so hard to comprehend how humans were once bought, sold, owned, and degraded in a country that stands for freedom. This painfully honest novel brings back the past so that people will never forget.
--- Reviewed by Chris Shanley Dillman, author
Customer Reviews
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THIS IS A MUST READ!!! Mrs. Draper has true writing skills that worked magic throughout this book. This book is classified for young adults but everyone should read it young and old alike. Mrs. Draper takes you from the very beginning with Amari playing with her brother in Africa, to being captured at the hands of her own neighboring tribe. From the horrible boat ride to America, (in vivid detail) to Amari being sold to a plantation owner for his son's sixteenth birthday present. Amari is left in the hands of a white indentured servant girl about her age to be made "civilized." You will have to read it for yourself to see what happens from here, you will not be disappointed! I was full of so many emotions, happy, sad, angry, I found myself ranting aloud a couple of times. This book is not predictable by far; I found it hard to put down. I rarely take books to work with me in fear of reading them and I just could not leave this book at home! This book offered me knowledge and understanding and for that I am grateful.
This book has a very powerful message to it. This made me think about all the things that I take for granted. With Amari being fifteen, I can relate to her. Usually you can not find books like this now a days. This book makes me think more about how lucky I am and how there are kids in the world that aren't as fortunate as I am. Sharon knows how to grab the readers attention. My friends and I are not big readers and we thought this book was good, and it is one of the very few books that we can stand to read. Drapers knows how to catch your wondering eye because when I saw this book on the amazon website I wanted to read it and I was not really interested in reading any other books.
I recommend this book to all of those people out there that do not like to read. Even though this book is a long one you do not get board with it you are interested with in the very first paragraph and Amari talking about her homeland Africa and about her family.
This book is a good one to read and I hope all of you enjoy my review, and reading this book.
Copper Sun was an exceptional book. I completely fell in love with it. The characters were well developed, the plot wasn't very predictable, and it gave me a sense of awe and wonder when I finished it. The book is under the genre of historical fiction and is about a 15 year old slave girl who was captured and sold into slavery from her native home in Africa. However, this isn't your typical fly-away-to-freedom slavery book. Amari, the main character, was raped and brutally beaten before she escaped to freedom with her white friend and a young boy. Sharon Draper offers two perspectives-that of Amari and of her white comrad Polly. Ironically instead of escaping to the North, they escape to the South where a non-discriminatory fort exists. There all are free and equal which is extremely uncommon during the year 1738. I won't tell anymore-you have to read it for yourself!
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Sharon Draper's Newest Won't Disappoint, February 23, 2006
a) I love Sharon Draper (Forged by Fire is my favorite!)
b) I bought it when Sharon Draper came to Cleveland for a book signing
Ms. Draper has been writing this book for about 10 years. Unlike her other books, this one is historical fiction. It follows Amari, a 15yr old from West Africa, specifically the Gold Coast/ Ghana, who is sold into slavery in the Carolinas before the revolutionary war.
It also looks closely at Polly, an indentured servant for the same man that owns Amari. (Amari has been bought specifically as a toy for a 16yr old boy.)
Through the sharing of painful experiences, Polly and Amari become friends and decide to escape together.
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