Alex Haley's Queen: the story of an American family
By Alex Haley and David Stevens

Author: Haley, Alex

W. Morrow, copyright 1993, 670p.
Other Contributors:
Stevens, David, 1947-: joint author


Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 031897

Different kind of Christmas, A

Author: Haley, Alex

Presents the moving story of a young Southerner who joins the Underground Railroad and helps mastermind the escape of slaves from his father's plantation on Christmas Eve


Doubleday, 1988, 101p.

Publishers Weekly Review: The awakening of a white Southerner to the evil of slavery is the subject of a novella, "for readers of all ages," by the author of Roots. Fletcher Randall, a college student at Princeton in 1855, has lately arrived from the North Carolina plantation where his family's many slaves were treated well, but "knew their place." Through friendship with the Ellis brothers, fellow-students and Quakers committed to the anti-slavery cause, Fletcher's new perception of humanity wrenchingly alters his relationship with his uncomprehending family. Once he enlists in the Underground Railroad by partnering Harpin' John, a plantation slave, in a daring Christmas Eve escape, Fletcher's future is irrevocably cast with his Northern, Quaker friends. Leaning towards the didactic, Haley's Christmas story is nevertheless a moving tale, a special rendering of the seasonal spirit. First serial to Good Housekeeping; Doubleday Book Club and Literary Guild alternates. (Dec.)

Kirkus Reviews A slim (101 pp.), transparent, and heavy-handed story of a young southern aristocrat who comes to see the evils of slavery and goes to work for the Underground Railroad. Distinctly YA, but advertised "for all ages," one assumes there's a TV movie tie-in--but, regardless, the story's unassailable morality, along with Haley's name, should make it a popular gift this Christmas. It's 1855. Princeton sophomore Fletcher Randall is the son of a North Carolina Senator and heir to his last plantation. A hardworking student, loner Fletcher is surprised when three Quaker brothers make overtures of friendship. Defensive about slavery, he expects to be challenged; but their sincerity wins him over, and he accepts an invitation to their Philadelphia home. He's outraged to meet free blacks and see an anti-slavery rally. Back at school, though, he researches the subject (allowing such devices as: "He'd had no idea that the Underground Railroad had acquired its name around 1831 when. . .") and is converted. Volunteering with the UGRR, Fletcher is assigned to go home for the holidays and arrange an escape among his father's slaves for Christmas Eve. Once home, he briefly wrestles with his conscience, then arranges a party at his father's mansion as a diversion. With fellow UGRR conductor Harpin' John, a talented and privileged slave, Fletcher arranges the escape. After dose calls, their plans succeed--thanks to unseen but handy local Indians--and Fletcher heads for a new life up North. Simplistic and baldly didactic, but, still, a painless, sometimes colorful history lesson for the kids.
(Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 1988)



Features about this author or title:

1. Author Read-Alike - Alex Haley


Author Web Sites:
1. Books and Writers-Alex Haley : Features a biography of the author.


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0517162695 : Hardcover - Budget Books
0681957220 : Paperback
0385260431 : Hardcover


Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 031898

Mama Flora's family: a novel
By Alex Haley and David Stevens

Author: Haley, Alex

A family saga focuses on matriarch Mama Flora, an African American woman whose husband dies at the hand of white landowners


New York: Scribner, 1998, 393 p.


Booklist Review: Alex Haley, author of the much-revered Roots, died in 1992, and now his final work has been finished from notes by coauthor David Stevens. A multigenerational saga, its central character is a woman called Flora, originally from Mississippi. In her new home of Tennessee, she meets Booker, who becomes her beloved husband, but he dies in her arms after being shot for stealing cotton so he could feed her and their little boy, Willie. In Willie, Flora invests all her dreams for a better life; when he drops out of school to work, she is devastated. Then he takes the train to Chicago, but he has left a girlfriend behind, whom he eventually marries. Before that happens, though, Flora takes in her orphaned niece, Ruthana, to raise as her own child, and it is Ruthana who fulfills Flora's dreams for a college education. The next generation of Flora's family brings new hopes and disappointments as the civil rights movement and all of its reactions and ramifications affect her grandchildren. But Flora's goodness has its abiding effect on them, too. Haley's attempt to show "the things [that] children do, the journeys they make," may lack for artistry, but it is a heartfelt personalization of social conditions in the black community from the post-World War I period to the present. Based on Haley's reputation, expect demand. ((Reviewed August 1998)) -- Brad Hooper

School Library Journal Review: YA-This novel treats the same struggle as Haley's Roots, but updates it. From the 1929 stock-market crash through the turbulence of 1968, the history is all there, framed by a fast-paced tale of strong-as-a-fortress Flora, who overcomes all obstacles to keep her family going. In her, readers meet a matriarch who nurtures the many branches of a rural Tennessee black family turned urban. Those who liked Alice Walker's The Color Purple (Harcourt, 1982) and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Random, 1970) will find themselves caught up in Flora's struggle to keep her three children and their offspring intact through integration. History students will recognize landmarks: Brown v. Board of Education, Rosa Parks and her civil disobedience, the lunch-counter sit-ins, the assassinations, the rise of the Black Muslims, Afros and daishikis in Harlem and Chicago, drugs, and tensions within the Civil Rights movement. Readers who like their history conveyed through compelling narrative and an authentic voice will find this complex novel well worth reading.-Margaret Nolan, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA

Kirkus Reviews Screenwriter Stevens (who completed the late Haley's Queen, 1993) has now crafted from another incomplete Haley novel one of those heartwarming generational sagas--destined as a miniseries on CBS-TV in November--that relies on individuals as eyewitnesses to history. Too often, when characters are turned into representatives of the Zeitgeist, they dance to the music of time rather than to the promptings of the heart, and Mama Flora's Family is no exception, but with one caveat: Mama Flora herself is as memorable a character as Root's Kunta Kinte and Chicken George. The eldest daughter of poor black farmers in Mississippi, Flora is seduced by the son of a wealthy black plantation owner and has to give up her baby and leave the state as a result. A devout Christian, Flora settles in a small Tennessee town, where she is helped by the local preacher to find work. After a brief but loving marriage to Booker, who is murdered by the Klan, Flora is determined that their only son Willie will go to college. But Willie, unlike Ruthana (the niece Flora raises when her sister dies), is no student: He leaves school, but the Depression makes work hard to find, so he heads to Chicago. There, he becomes involved with drug dealers and black communists, then joins the army and fights heroically in the Pacific, only to return to find racial prejudice still entrenched. The times are changing, though, and Flora and her growing family respond in different ways. Some become Moslem, others join the Black Panthers, take drugs, or, like Ruthana, go to Africa. Even Flora does her part, by single-handedly desegregating the local cafƒ. At the reunion for her 80th birthday, the community and her family are all there to honor her. Not in the same class as Roots, but an affecting if superficial take on recent racial history.
(Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1998)



Features about this author or title:

1. Author Read-Alike - Alex Haley


Other related features:

1. Author Read-Alike - Alex Haley


Author Web Sites:
1. Books and Writers-Alex Haley : Features a biography of the author.


Other Contributors:
Stevens, David, 1940-: jt. author

ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0684834715
044023543X : Paperback - Mass Market
0671043277 : Cassette - Audio
0440614090 : Paperback - Print on Demand
0613219570 : Glued Binding


Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• School Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 031899

Roots: the saga of an American family
Alex Haley

Author: Haley, Alex

Captured in Africa, Kunta Kinte, a tribal prince, becomes a slave, and eventually generations of his family survive to become free again.


Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976, viii, 688 p.

Notes:
A condensed version of a portion of this work first appeared in Reader's digest
Sequel: Alex Haley's Queen: the story of an American family


Lexile:
1330

Features about this author or title:

1. Author Read-Alike - Alex Haley


Other related features:

1. Annotated Book List - Stories From Your Own Backyard: Novels Inspired by Family History

2. Annotated Book List - The Roots of Modern African American Fiction

3. Author Read-Alike - Alex Haley


Author Web Sites:
1. Books and Writers-Alex Haley : Features a biography of the author.


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0385037872
0440174643 : Paperback - Mass Market
0517208601 : Hardcover - Budget Books
1568494718 : Hardcover
0808511033 : Glued Binding
0606016155 : DEMCO Turtleback - Juvenile
1593154496 : Paperback
0816166390 : Hardcover - Large Print


Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• American Historical Fiction: An Annotated Guide to Novels for Adults and Young Adults, published by Oryx Press
• MetaMetrics, Inc.
• Added to NoveList: 20040620
• TID: 124573