 Official cover art | |
| Author | Sharon M. Draper |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Atheneum Books |
Publication date | September 20, 2006 |
| Awards | Coretta Scott King Award |
| ISBN | 9781416953487 |
Copper Sun is a 2006 young adult novel by Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Sharon Draper.
When Draper traveled to Ghana, West Africa, she visited the Cape Coast Castle Point of No Return. The castles housed thousands of slaves that were kept before getting on the ship which was the main inspiration for this novel. [1] Copper Sun addresses the Transatlantic Slave Trade, slavery in America, and freedom. [2]
Amari, a 15-year old girl, is with Kwasi, her 8-year old brother, in her village of Ziavi, Africa. Kwasi is in a coconut tree when Amari tells him to get down and bring some fruits to their mother. Kwasi teases Amari by saying he saw her promised to Besa, a drummer from their village. Amari then starts describing her village. She meets up with Besa, who is going to the elders of the village, claiming to have seen strangers who have "skin the color of goat’s milk.” She goes back to her family's home, uneasy. After talking with her mother about these people, they conclude that they must welcome these people, and start making preparations for their guests. The men arrive later, along with warriors from the Ashanti, a nearby tribe. After exchanging gifts, the village storyteller, Komla, who is Amari's own father, starts telling tales about the past. Then ceremonial dancing begins, to the beat of ceremonial drums.
Suddenly, one of the white men shoots the village chief with his gun. Fighting follows, with various villagers trying to escape, only to be killed by the white men. The Ashanti warriors that accompanied the men join them in capturing the villagers. Both of Amari's parents are killed, and later when she tries to escape with her brother, he is killed as well before she is shackled and brought back to the village. At daybreak, she discovers that only 24 villagers are alive, and all of them are like her, young and fairly healthy. Amari and the other villagers are then shackled in the neck to each other and are commanded by the white men to start walking. Several of the villagers die, some from wounds, others from simply losing the will to live. Amari, along with the surviving villagers and a few other groups of captives then arrive at Cape Coast, in what is nowadays Southern Ghana.
There, she is thrown into a prison with other women, having lost their families in the mass genocide, who were now hostile, where she befriends a lady called Afi. Afi, with no family of her own, treats Amari like her own daughter. Afi starts telling Amari of all the horrible things that await her. After a few days, all of the women are brought out of their mass cells and inspected by a thin, white man. Amari initially resists, but after being slapped in the face by the white man and hearing advice from Afi, she suffers while he probes her. Then, the women are bought by the thin white man and sent through a long, narrow tunnel in the side of the wall. Amari goes through and is then pulled up at the end of the tunnel.
She then looks out onto the sea for the first time, admiring how beautiful the sand is, and how vast the ocean is. She then sees the large freighter that the white men came in, and she likens it to a place of death. She is then brought to a fire, where she is branded and then thrown into another cell, with other people that have also been branded. She watches as several of the Ashanti, who had helped the white men in capturing Amari's village, among other villages, are also branded and then thrown into the cell. Besa was the last one to be thrown into the cell, and Amari briefly looks at him. They are given no water during the day, but at night, they are fed well, mainly to strengthen them for the journey, Afi tells Amari. Afi then tell Amari that they will never see Africa again. Amari then manages to sleep. At daybreak, the prisoners are fed more food, and medicine is applied to the spot where they were branded. Amari watches sadly as Besa, along with the men, are taken out of the cell. Afi advises Amari to forget about him, and when she asks why didn't Afi just leave her to die, she responds that she must survive to tell future generations their story.
The women were then led out by their captors, and Amari watches as the men are loaded into a small boat, and taken to the larger freighter. Amari, along with the other women are loaded into another waiting boat and then rowed across to the freighter. Amari watches as two women try to escape and jump off the boat, only to be consumed by two sharks. The women are then led aboard the freighter. They are pushed into the cargo hold aboard the freighter, which smells terrible due to the men urinating and defecating wherever they can. Once they are in the women's area of the hold, Afi starts humming an old funeral song in which eventually all of the women join in.
After several hours, the women are led out of the cargo hold, fed, and thrown saltwater on to roughly clean them. A white man then starts drumming on a barrel and tells them to "dance", jumping up and down. Amari notices one white man with orange-colored hair looking her directly at her face, not at her body, as the other white men are doing with the other women. The women are then chained to the deck, and Afi tells Amari that that night, they will be forced to have sex with the men. Then, the men are brought on deck, and go through the same procedure that the women go through. When the men finish, they are brought back down to the hold. At nightfall, the white men start choosing women to have sex with. The orange-haired man, whose name is Bill, comes to Amari and takes her to his room. He then tells her to scream, and after she does, he allowed her to sit and gives her water, then starts teaching her English.
After a couple of hours, he leads her back outside, gives her more water, and ties her gently to a mast, after which he leaves. Amari tells Afi that she was not raped, and Afi tells her that she was lucky this night, but that the next night, or the night after that, she will be taken. Afi then consoles Amari and hugs her. The next few nights, Amari is raped, and thrown back onto the deck. Bill occasionally rescues Amari from the other men and teaches her English. When they are close to arriving to their destination, the slaves are fed better and the doctor of the ship tends to them. When they arrive at Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, they are inspected and then brought to a prison, where they are told that they will stay there for 10 days to make sure they do not have any diseases, such as smallpox. Amari has a short reunion with Besa, before he is taken to another part of the prison.
After the quarantine, Amari and the other women are taken to a slave auction. They are all stripped, probed, fondled, and strapped to tables. On a deck to one side of the clearing is an indentured young woman named Polly, who thinks of the soon to be enslaved Africans as inferior. Mr. Derby, a large, noticeably greasy man buys Amari and Polly after auctioning with other plantation owners. Polly was bought because she had a 14-year long indenture because of the debt her parents didn't pay off. Mr. Derby also has a son named Clay, who disgusts both of the young women. Amari was bought as a "present" for Clay, and he gave her the name "Myna" to reinforce his ownership. Initially, tensions are high between Polly and Amari because of her prejudice. The wagon ride to Derbyshire Farms is very uncomfortable for Amari and Polly, who are belittled by Clay and Mr. Derby the few times they speak up.
Most critics saw Copper Sun as “unflinching and unforgettable.” [3] Another critic thought of the novel as “character driven, with a fast moving plot, and unforgettable characters.” [4] Agreeing, another critic noted that the novel was "horrific" "multi-faceted" and that "[they were] afraid to turn the page." [5] Beverly Almond noted that the novel expresses “unimaginable hardship” and “starvation and disease.” [6] Another critic claimed that the book showed themes of "pain, hope, and determination" and "human exploitation and suffering." [7] Kirkus Reviews added that the novel showed "cynicism and realistic outlook." [8]
Sharon Draper's Copper Sun won the Coretta Scott King award in 2007. [9]
Zorba the Greek is a 1964 drama film written, produced, edited, and directed by Greek Cypriot filmmaker Michael Cacoyannis. It stars Anthony Quinn as Zorba, an earthy and boisterous Cretan peasant, and Alan Bates as the buttoned-up young intellectual he befriends. The cast also includes Lila Kedrova, Irene Papas, and Sotiris Moustakas. The musical score was composed by Mikis Theodorakis. The film is based on the 1946 novel The Life And Times Of Alexis Zorba by Nikos Kazantzakis. Though the film has elements of comedy, and Kazatzakis's anti-hero Zorba has been generally understood as a 'life-affirming' personality it features a gruesome femicide, and Zorba's cynical, egotistical and manipulative personality and his determined optimism are explicity shown to be a response to, and in defiance of, the cruelties and vicissitudes of life.
Road to Morocco is a 1942 American comedy film starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, and featuring Anthony Quinn and Dona Drake. Written by Frank Butler and Don Hartman and directed by David Butler, it’s the third of the "Road to …" films. It was preceded by Road to Zanzibar (1941) and followed by Road to Utopia (1946). The story is about two fast-talking guys cast away on a desert shore and sold into slavery to a princess.
Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader and the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his death. As an advocate for African-American equality, she was a leader for the civil rights movement in the 1960s. King was also a singer who often incorporated music into her civil rights work. King met her husband while attending graduate school in Boston. They both became increasingly active in the American civil rights movement.
Alex Haley's Queen is a 1993 American television miniseries that aired in three installments on February 14, 16, and 18 on CBS. The miniseries is an adaptation of the 1993 novel Queen: The Story of an American Family, by Alex Haley and David Stevens. The novel is based on the life of Queen Jackson Haley, Haley's paternal grandmother. Alex Haley died in February 1992 before completing the novel. It was later finished by David Stevens and published in 1993. Stevens also wrote the screenplay for the miniseries.
Lucy Delaney was an African American seamstress, slave narrator, and community leader. She was born into slavery and was primarily held by the Major Taylor Berry and Judge Robert Wash families. As a teenager, she was the subject of a freedom lawsuit, because her mother lived in Illinois, a free state, longer than 90 days. According to Illinois state law, enslaved people that reside in Illinois for more than 90 days should be indentured and freed. The country's rule of partus sequitur ventrem asserts that if the mother was free at the child's birth, the child should be free. After Delaney's mother, Polly Berry, filed a lawsuit for herself, she filed a lawsuit on her daughter's behalf in 1842. Delaney was held in jail for 17 months while awaiting the trial.
Sun-Hwa Kwon, better known simply as "Sun", is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Yunjin Kim.
Seven Swords is a 2005 wuxia film produced and directed by Tsui Hark, starring Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung, Sun Honglei, Lu Yi and Kim So-yeon. An international co-production between Hong Kong, China, South Korea and the Netherlands, the story is loosely adapted from Liang Yusheng's novel Qijian Xia Tianshan and is completely unrelated to the novel except for some characters' names. Seven Swords was used as the opening film to the 2005 Venice Film Festival and as a homage to Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai.
Devil in a Blue Dress is a 1995 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written and directed by Carl Franklin, based on Walter Mosley's 1990 novel of the same name and features Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore, Jennifer Beals, and Don Cheadle. Set in the summer of 1948, the film follows World War II veteran Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins who, desperate in need of a job, becomes drawn into a search for a mysterious woman.
Hercules in the Underworld is the fourth television movie in the syndicated fantasy series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
Sharon Mills Draper is an American children's writer, professional educator, and the 1997 National Teacher of the Year. She is a five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for books about the young and adolescent African-American experience. She is known for her Hazelwood and Jericho series, Copper Sun,Double Dutch, Out of My Mind and Romiette and Julio.
Donald Francis Draper, born Richard “Dick” Whitman, is a fictional character and the protagonist of the AMC television series Mad Men (2007–2015), portrayed by Jon Hamm. At the beginning of the series, Draper is the charismatic yet enigmatic creative director at the fictional Manhattan advertising firm Sterling Cooper. In spite of his success, he is plagued by several personal problems, including the issues of identity and social alienation, in part due to his difficult past. His personal and professional developments in the show are frequently situated against the larger social, political, and economic events of the 1960s.
Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid is a 1948 American romantic fantasy film directed by Irving Pichel starring William Powell and Ann Blyth in the title roles. The film was based on the 1945 novel Peabody's Mermaid by Guy and Constance Jones. Sequences were shot at the Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida; Blyth's swimming doubles were Nancy Tribble and Mary Ann Ziegler.
Pollyanna is a 1960 American comedy-drama film starring child actress Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Karl Malden, and Richard Egan in a story about a cheerful orphan changing the outlook of a small town. The film was written and directed by David Swift, based on the 1913 novel Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter. The film won Hayley Mills an Academy Juvenile Award. It was the last film of actor Adolphe Menjou.
Hitler's Madman is a 1943 World War II drama directed by Douglas Sirk. It is a fictionalized account of the 1942 assassination of Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich and the resulting Lidice massacre, which the Germans committed as revenge. The film stars Patricia Morison and Alan Curtis and features John Carradine as Reinhard Heydrich. Sirk intended the film to function more as a documentary, but after Louis B. Mayer acquired the film in February 1943, he required reshoots to increase the drama. According to TCM, “Added material included Heydrich's deathbed scene with "Himmler" and university scenes featuring M-G-M starlets, including Ava Gardner.”
Sweet Revenge is a 1987 American motion picture starring Nancy Allen as Jillian Grey, a newscaster abducted and sold into white slavery while doing an undercover expose. Ted Shackelford, Martin Landau, Gina Gershon, Michele Little, and Lotis Key round out the cast of this R-rated action adventure directed by Mark Sobel with Roger Corman acting as executive producer.
Flight Nurse is a 1953 American drama war film directed by Allan Dwan and stars Joan Leslie and Forrest Tucker. The film is largely based on the life of Lillian Kinkella Keil, one of the most decorated women in American military history. Flight Nurse begins with the dedication: "This picture is respectfully dedicated to that brave legion of military nurses who are serving with the armed forces of free nations all over the world. These angels of mercy – shoulder to shoulder, share the danger and hardships of free fighting men everywhere, with devotion above and beyond the call of duty."
Men on Call is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by John G. Blystone and written by James Kevin McGuinness and Basil Woon. The picture stars Edmund Lowe, Mae Clarke, William Harrigan, Sharon Lynn, Warren Hymer and Ruth Warren. The film was released on January 18, 1931, by Fox Film Corporation.
Polly Pocket is a 2D-animated adventure fantasy children's television series based on Mattel's doll of the same name. It features Polly having a magical locket that allows her and her friends to shrink down to tiny sizes.
Numit Kappa is an ancient Meitei language mythological epic literary work. The work is believed to be written around or before 33 AD. It is written in the form of partial poetry and partial prose.
Family, published in 1991, is a neo-slave narrative written by American playwright and author J. California Cooper. It tells the story of multiple generations of African-American slaves from the point of view of the dead Clora, who killed herself and tried to kill her four children in order to escape slavery. Clora follows her four children around the world through the years, but keeps a special eye on Always, her favorite child. The novel spans from 1840 through 1933, with Clora waking up and skipping to different time periods throughout the years.