A Light to My Path - Blog

Introduction 

             Have you wondered what it was like to live as a slave in America before the Civil War? If you have A Light to My Path by Lynn Austin is a great book for you. Even if you've never wondered that you may still love this book and all the connections you can make to it. It shows the struggles of being a slave and still trusting in the Lord. So far I am very much enjoying this book an how it's so easy to imagine the scenes the author describes. I have read about a slave named Kitty who's Missy is Claire Fuller from a very wealthy family. There also is the split perspective of Grady who was taken away from his home from a very young age and sold to a slave trader. They eventually meet and their perspectives show their thoughts about each other. In this book the reader follows their adventures and their struggles as slaves.

Text to Self

                Kitty, one of the main characters in this book has lived in slave row ever since she got to that plantation. She ended up being a chambermaid for her Missy Claire who is a brat and often gets bored of her and sends her to go help with other stuff in the house. Kitty used to have very vivid day dreams of when she was little running away from dogs and slave catchers with her parents. When she is told about what happened to her parents after they were caught she becomes very sad and her Missy Claire notices it. She ended up sending her away and tells her to not even help around the house but to go back to slave row where she does a whole days worth of work in the rice fields. She is so desperate to get out of the rice fields she acts like a cat which was the way she got into the house and was excepted. I can connect to this because if I lived on slave row and had to work in those horrible rice fields I would be willing to try anything to get out and back to where I was. I can definitely understand how desperate she was and I would be okay crawling on all fours and acting like a cat if I didn't have to work in the fields.

Text to World

            Before the Civil War in America slave owners wanted their slaves to think that they wouldn't be able to survive on their own and some even believed it. This is the same in this book because at a dinner a slave owner is talking to his guests about how he thinks that he is doing a favor to the slaves by giving them food and a roof over their head because without him they wouldn't be able to survive. The way of thinking in the book and at that time in America are the same if not similar. Their are loads of other examples of Text to World in this book, it is historical fiction after all.

Text to Text

         In this book Grady, one of the two main characters, has a loving family where their owner doesn't whip and of them and he plays with his daughter Caroline Fletcher as a little kid. Whenever he is scared or needs reassurance his mother or one of the other slaves are their to comfort him. This all changes one morning when their owner sells Grady and he goes to the slave action. He gets bought by a slave trader and ends up working for him for 4 years. His owner is a drunk man who looks for the slightest mistake in his slaves to beat them up for. In these horrible years he gets no comfort which he is used to and needs. After 4 dreadful years he gets sold to the Fullers in a entrusting way (you'll have to read it to find out) and gets comforted their and is revealed. This relates to The Secret Life of Bees because both of the main characters are away from comfort for so long they have basically forgotten what it feels like to be loved. In the Secret Life of Bees when her mother dies she is left with her unloving father who is very creative with his punishments. When he tells her that her mother left her she decides she has had enough and runs away with her servant. She ends up with three sisters who take her in and care for her. Their niceness and loving ways shock her after so long without love. These book are very similar in this way.

Conclusion

         This book is a really amazing book I love the way she has her religion as part of the book. Many events in this book reminded me of the battles we studied in Social Studies this year. I love this series so much I wish it were a movie but technically it already happened so it would be just a well made reenactment of a family before and during the Civil War. I like the way Lynn Austin put real life events into this book (the Civil War). I wonder why she had Kitty, one of the main characters be so hard on herself and not respect herself. I like the pictures of the characters on the front of the book because it helps you imagine what the characters look like. Even thought it was reality at the time I dislike how some slaves were constantly afraid that their owner would over hear their conversation so they tell the other slaves how great their master is then they start believing it and with that their self respect starts plummeting. Overall I think this book is very entrusting and in many cases it is hard to stop reading this book.