Book 1: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Up until middle school, everyone in my class hated studying history. Our textbooks were hand-me-downs from a local high school and all we were taught were names & dates of battles. And then we got a new middle school history teacher who taught us about how people lived throughout history, and we all loved it. In 7th grade we learned about the Civil War, and Mrs. Brenneman explained the significance of the book Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I asked if we were going to read it as a class, and she said no, it was too difficult for middle schoolers. 

I was determined to read it anyway since it was so historically important, and I found a decrepit copy in my mother's basement - I have no idea why she had it. She told me not to read it because people would think we were poor if they saw me reading a book barely held together by old tape, so I snuck it to school. When my reading teacher saw me physically struggling with the book, she bought me the copy that I still own. This was a very abusive school, so this thoughtful gesture was all the more precious. Her generosity & encouragement, not the novel itself, are why I own this book.

This is my first time rereading it in 26 years, and the written dialect is still very difficult to comprehend. In the introduction, it's explained that this novel was originally a serial in a magazine; this explains how the writing dramatically improves throughout the book. And it's extremely preachy, Beecher Stowe came from a family of ministers and several chapters read like long-winded sermons.

That being said, it is an historically important book. I was surprised at several ideas articulated 170 years ago: a class of non-citizens have no reason to support the government, white northerners admonished the South for slavery but didn't want Black people around themselves (which clashed with how my teachers praised the North for being so enlightened, but now I know the book was accurate), Jesus had more in common with enslaved peoples than with their white enslavers, etc. Beecher Stowe's primary criticism of chattel slavery was separating families, and here we are with ICE, the school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, and internment camps. 

And there are the more well-known issues of the book. Uncle Tom is a white woman's saccharine Christ allegory, and most of the book consists of "kind" white enslavers moralizing over their perceived limited options. I wouldn't recommend this book on its own merits, more as historical insight. And while I think reading any book should be required before criticizing it, Uncle Tom's Cabin is worth the effort of trying to understand.