For my quarter three outside reading assignment I chose to read The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper off of the New York Times “100 Notable Books of 2008”. The book is a memoir written about Helene’s childhood as a privileged member of the Congo society in Liberia. Her ancestors were some of the first freed slaves to come back to Africa from the US in the early 1800’s. This enables them to be a part of the upper class in Africa. When people think of Africa they often picture wild people in the bushes but her situation was very different. They had cars, three houses, a generous staff, expensive schooling, and much more.
The book starts with Helene and her family moving from their house in the city to their new custom built house on Sugar Beach. Just the upper level had, “five bedrooms and three bathrooms and a TV lounge and an indoor balcony that looked down onto the children’s toy room on the first floor” (Cooper 9). The first floor had two more bedrooms, three more bathrooms, a music room, recreations room, dining room, living room and more. This shows the wealth that Helene was surrounded by all throughout her childhood. Its really eye-opening to see the other side of Africa. I am so used to hearing of the wars and brutalities over there that this is refreshing.
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4 comments:
You're right. Everything we hear about Africa is the poverty, dieseases and genocides. It's good to hear that there's another side to that. Your book sounds interesting, but you didn't really say much about it.
I agree with Shannon, it's an interesting view point on Africa. I don't know much about Africa from that time period, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the book. Will they just show the upper class side of Africa? Or will they show poverty too?
I completely agree with the comments Shannon and Andrea made, you do need to elaborate a bit more in your blog. But your book sound like a much-needed fresh take on things happening in Africa. I can't wait to hear more about it!
This sounds like a really interesting plot to a book. It would be interesting to read about past slaves life and how their lives were effected. You brought up a good stero-type about housing in Africa. When I think about housing in Africa, thats usually what I think about, but I guess I am completely wrong. I've never really read about an upper-class family in Africa so I would definitely want to read this book in the future.
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