River, Cross My Heart vs Roots: Which Should You Read?

River, Cross My Heart Breena Clarke · 1999 ★★★★☆ 3.5 256 pages · ≈ 4 h 44 m · Moderate

The impact of a child's drowning on a black family in 1925 Washington, especially on the 12-year-old sister who was baby-sitting the girl. Told against the background of the lot of African Americans at the time.

Roots Alex Haley · 1861 ★★★★☆ 4.4 476 pages · ≈ 8 h 49 m · Demanding

“Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the coast of The Gambia, West Africa, a manchild was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte.”

Roots is a novel written by Alex Haley and published in 1976. It portrays the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and…