Copper Sun

As a history teacher, I used this book to help my students visualize slavery. I can say it is historically accurate. A lot of reviews saying otherwise are simply untrue. Of course, the book is a fiction text so certain events seem unlikely to occur in real life. However, the way in which slavery is represented is 100% accurate. There is mild sexual content that highlights the rape and sexual violence of slave women, however, at some point, students will have to learn about it. The book does not explicitly detail sexual acts making it better for middle school students to read. Overall, my students love it and it helped them have a deeper understanding of Slavery.

As a teacher and parent I'm a bit confused how some of the reviews stated that there was a lot of misrepresentation of slavery in the book. The fact that the author DID NOT misrepresent anything and told the raw truths that many of our children will never be taught is why I loved this novel so much. My female students can't seem to put it down either because you're on the edge of your seat from the time you pick this book up. Also I loved that in a lot of novels Slavery starts here in America on a plantation somewhere, the author chose to begin this story with the main character 15 year old Amari being in her native environment with her family and also included some of the traditions that they had before the unthinkable. I just appreciate this author for not sugar coating our history while still remaining appropriate for young teens, I mean if a 13 year old doesn't know anything about rape or never heard of it before reading this book that;s probably an issue in itself. This novel does not give graphical details of the rape encounters so it's very age appropriate. I personally didn't too much care for the ending.