"Kindred"

On April 23 I had the unique experience of participating in World Book Night with the public library I work for. World Book Night is sponsored by major bookstores and publishing companies, and during the day one million books are given away across the country. This was the first year our library participated, and we were very excited about the opportunity. We chose seven titles to be given away in our community and, overall, it was a great success. We are looking forward to the event next year, especially since we got to pick out free books as well! The most popular book we handed out was The Hunger Games, but in a close second was Kindred, by Octavia Butler. Published in 1979, this author and her books have never reached my radar but were highly praised by my boss and everyone who chose to take her book. I decided to give it a try.

Octavia Butler has the distinction of being one of the few female African American science fiction writers. Having won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, she is also the best known from that category. As embarrassed as I was having never heard of her, I was anxious to start reading her book, especially after the one-line description I heard over and over again: "It's African American science fiction set around the Civil War." Huh. Never heard of that before, but sounds good to me!

As you may have guessed from my previous description, Kindred is a science fiction novel primarily set in Maryland about 50 years before the Civil War. The main character, Dana, is a female African American writer from 1976 who has the unfortunate ability to travel back in time. She doesn't discover this ability until she is 26 and suddenly appears in a creek just in time to save the life of a little boy. She later discovers that this little red-headed boy is Rufus Weyland, future plantation owner and her great-great grandfather. Dana continues to be pulled to Rufus whenever his life (and her own, as a future relative) is in danger, which happens to be a lot for this danger-loving boy. And as an African American in the Antebellum South, Dana must learn to live as a slave while she is stuck in Rufus' time. Obviously, this transition is not easy for Dana or the reader. She endures hardships that few of us today can imagine. Butler obviously did her homework before writing this novel because the historical details are spot-on, but described so simply that the reader often forgets that this world is totally new to Dana. While slave narratives are not unusual to today's reader, it is unusual to find a book that can easily discuss discrimination in both 1825 and 1976.

Kindred is an excellent find as we enter the "summer reading" phase. While a little slow to start as Butler sorts through the difficult task of introducing Dana to her new world while keeping the reader on track, the novel picks up speed as the lines blur between Dana's reality and her "past life." Introducing the idea of time travel for an African American back to one of the country's darkest periods is genius...and terrifying.

Overall Grade: B+