Copper Sun

Title: Copper Sun

Author: Sharon Draper
Publication date: 2006
Number of pages: 302
Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction
Geographical Setting: Ashanti village in Africa, Cape Coast, Carolinas (America)
Time Period: 1738 (Colonial America)
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Fifteen year old Amari watches as her parents and younger brother are murdered by the men who take her away to her fate to travel the Middle Passage to be auctioned on the American shores. Amari is purchased as a gift for a rice plantation owner’s son on his 16^th birthday. Newly-purchased indentured servant, Polly, becomes an unlikely friend as they both learn to survive their new fates.

Subject Headings: slavery, rape, racism, African American, historical fiction, Middle Passage, murder, Colonial America, plantations

Appeal: narrative switches focus back and forth from Amari to Polly, author did extensive research for this book, Little-known Florida’s Fort Mose sanctuary for runaway slaves is introduced, the incidents of rape, violence and murder may be too graphic and emotional for readers under 12.

If you like Copper Sun, you might enjoy: Octavia Butler's Kindred, Yuval Taylor's Growing Up in Slavery: Stories of Young Slaves Told By Themselves, Don Jordan and Michael Walsh's White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America