Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I loved this book! I have read several of Oprah's picks. Some I have liked, some I have not. This is one that I couldn't put down. It hooked me in from the first page. It was especially interesting to me, because it is a novel based on an actual family's history. A story of real women working to gain independence for themselves and future generations.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: I don't know if anyone could read this book and NOT feel somehow changed by it.Although written as fiction, the documents, family histories and pictures give not-so-silent tribute to this REAL family, and their very real experiences. I found myself pouring over the pictures, flipping back frequently to put a face with a name, and thinking the whole time "It's like Lalita Tademy sat down and talked with her ancestors!" I would love to see this book hit the "required reading" lists of high schools. It's a lesson in so many things, not the least of which is the author's tenacious search for details, documentation and something else...something hard to define...but it's almost like she slipped into a time machine and brought back the past for us. I can't wait for her next book! I feel like I've learned a more valuable lesson than any text book could have taught. I learned instead from Elisabeth, Philomene, and Emily.
Rating:
Summary: Cane River
Review: I loved the book. It was really great reading and learning about the different families. It is really nice to find a fiction book that is about real people that is so adequately written. It makes me realize how great my family really is. I really understand how my dad feels when he is searching the internet and places for people for the family tree. It makes me which I could write a book about my family history. My favorite was Emily.It was really great learning about her lfieShe really had a tramatic time through out her life. I really liked how most every family sticks together through thick and thin. Even the men take care of the kids and his wife. A lot of men don't do that now. They either leave before the baby is born, say the baby is not their's, or just don't care about their kids.
Rating:
Summary: Not like Oprah's previous selections
Review: I've been hesitant to buy a book "endorsed" by Oprah, because they all have seemed so dark, solemn and depressing. However, this book hooked me and dragged me in, and I can't praise it highly enough. It's an uplifting story of generations of strong women, each of whom chooses a path that seems to provide greater strength for the daughters yet to come. Do yourself a favor, and buy this book. Then find a quiet chair in a corner and immerse yourself in the power of determination, courage and strength. You'll think about these women long after you've closed the book......and isn't that why we love to read in the first place?
Rating:
Summary: Historically correct and bringing it to life
Review: The Creole people and their lives came alive in this well written book. We are given a view into what has made the Creoles of Louisiana who they are. What I liked best about this book is being able to see into their lives and what the slave family felt. It's not just "another" book about the unjustness of slavery. It opens up their lives, bringing life even in the face of oppression. Even facing it with the strength of will to overcome it and come out better in the end, in spite of it all. I didn't want the "intrusion" into their lives to end. Beautiful!
Rating:
Summary: Kudos to :Ms. Tademy
Review: Being an avid & quick reader, I usually average a book a week. Cane River was one of the best that I have read. The author writes beautifully but she had a connection with the characters that is evident - the 4 main women are real - there is no sugar coating of their world of slavery and Reconstruction. And I came away with respect and awe of the Cane River women. Having studied the Civil War in high school and college, I thought I "knew it all"but this novel enhanced my knowledge of a dark time in US History. I learned, rejoiced, wept, and applauded as the proud black women through a matrihiercal system survived and succeeded. A gem of a book and kudos to Ms. Tademy!
Rating:
Summary: Yes! The Summer's Two BEST Reads!
Review: The newspaper is right! Cane River by Lalita Tademy and Tending Roses by Lisa Wingate are the summer's two best reads! Both of these books are gripping, beautifully written, filled with emotional moments and strong characters. Cane River is a masterpiece of historical fiction, showing the intertwining of generations. The author's words flow like the river itself, and are strong and gripping like the characters in the book. If you don't read anything else this summer, read Cane River and Tending Roses. Both are books I would not have missed, ones I will keep forever, and recommend to every reader I know. I want to shout it from the mountaintops! Read these two books!
Rating:
Summary: Author of "The Second Coming Of Age" gives five stars!
Review: American history has been recorded to behoove the ruling classes. Only recently has the true nature of America's history begun to be told by brave books like "Cane River". Much more will have to be told, like "The Second Coming Of Age", before we are a true and fair democracy that lives in peace and harmony. Congradulations Lalita Tademy!
Rating:
Summary: Let us not ever forget...
Review: "We must make sure that from now until the end of days all humankind stares this evil in the face ... only then can we be sure it will never arise again." "Here we will learn that each of us bears responsibility for our actions and for our failure to act. Here we will learn that we must intervene when we see evil arise..." These are the words of two American presidents engraved on plaques in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. These words could and should equally be applied to the United States' abomination, the institution of slavery - an abomination whose shame cuts particularly deeply when one remembers that our nation was founded on the core belief of freedom from oppression in all forms. Consider these words of George Washington: "All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens." (8-17-1790) The Holocaust is Germany's shame, and we must never forget what happened there, less we allow history to repeat itself. Likewise, the oppression and enslavement of African Americans in our nation of "freedom" must never be forgotten, downplayed, justified, or swept under the carpet... Lalita Tademy's novel, Cane River, is an important work because it helps us to remember. Through telling the history of her own family, Tademy puts flesh and blood perspective into the horrific struggles and sorrows of slaves in the 1800s. As a reader, I found myself righteously outraged as I watched white men possess and impregnate young teenage slaves, young children/husbands sold away from their mothers/wives, too-numerous-to-count injustices perpetrated against a people group just because of the "color" (said in quotes because of the bleaching of the color line...) of their skin. Stripped of even the most basic of human rights, each of these women (Elizabeth, Suzette, Philomene and Emily) fought to keep the family together and to gain a better life for their children. The themes covered in this book are very similar to those written about in Sally Hemings, the novel about Thomas Jefferson's slave wife/family (also a book that combines fiction to provide motives and fact backed up by documents/letters). Both these books compel the reader to walk in the footsteps of the slaves. The only way I would have liked to have fine-tuned Tademy's novel would be to take each of the three sections - Suzette, Philomene, Emily - and write them from a first person perspective instead of from the "all-omniscient third person" perspective. By writing in the first person, Tademy could have added greater depth and an even stronger voice to these women in her family and could have created a more intimate experience for the reader - but this is simply an editorial preference of my own. I highly recommend this novel (and Sally Hemings, too) and would love to see it (or both!) incorporated into school curriculum: "Let us pledge that we will never shut our eyes, never refuse to acknowledge the truth, no matter how unpleasant. If nothing else, the painful memory we share together should strengthen our resolve to do this. Our founding fathers believed in certain self evident truths, but for truth to prevail we must have the courage to proclaim it... those victims who cannot be with us today do a vital service to mankind by being remembered." (R. Reagan 4-11-83 re: future Holocaust museum - but I say "Amen" to remembering America's shame too!) Thank you, Lalita Tademy for sharing your family with us, so we might remember...
Rating: 
Summary: Cane River (Okay)
Review: I liked a lot of it and I am proud and amazed at how Lalita Tademy researched her heritage and the fictional account of how she put it all together. It seemed a little rushed at the end, but I still liked it. On a scale of one to 5, I would give it a 3. GOD BLESS, Tamara
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