What do You think about Sarny (1999)?
Sarny is a fictional tale of the life of a slave woman named Sarny. She is born on a plantation and the author chronicles her life from freedom to her death. I feel that I would have loved this book had I read it as a child, because I used to love short historical fiction stories like this one, especially around the civil war. I wasn't very enthusiastic about reading Sarny, but the book turned out to be alright. It is a nice simple book to read, that doesn't bring up any new ideas but makes a nice break from reading more complicated books (no offense to the author, but I'm sure he meant the book to be simple for a young adult audience).I liked the authenticity of the language in the book, which was written from Sarny's perspective. The author must have put a lot of thought into wording her thoughts the way he did. The plot of the book is extremely unlikely to ever happen, but that isn't necessarily a flaw. After all, it's nice to read a book with a happy ending once in a while.
—Anna
This book is a contiuned series to Night John, and it's about Sarny's adventure journey to New Orleans in the search for her two children; Deili and Tyler. As both Sarny and Lucy (young girl who she be-friended) travel the 500 or so miles South they find many injuried soldiers; yet, the sights and feelings soon come to their thoughts about white people, Sarny discovers new ways. I really enjoyed this book, I decided to get it because I could not ease my curiousity to the ending of Night John and I needed to know more about Sarny. I think this book is a great book for muliculture because it mentions the different ways of how the South grew up and how other relgions differ from my own relgion. Very interesting and exciting book for children.
—Cj
Sarny is a slave on a large plantation in the south. She has two kids and is literate unlike many slaves. Sarny starts to find newspapers that say that the northern army is coming to free the slaves. One day, Sarny’s kids get sold to a different owner. Sarny begs for him to take her with him, but he refuses. Sarny waits and waits for the north to free her so she can find her kids until one day, she hears a gunshot and sees part of the north invading the plantation. The plantation owner named Waller is dying after a soldier stabbed him. Sarny asked him “ Where did my children go”? But Waller didn’t answer. He died before he got a chance to. Sarny then sets out on her own on a quest to find her children. While she’s looking for them, she meets a girl who may help her. Will Sarny find her children? Will the girl Sarny meets be helpful? To find out, you have to read “Sarny” by Gary Paulsen.
—Jack N
