Clora’s Cry

Clora, a mother and ghost, follows the lives of her four children: Always, Sun, Peach, and Plum. The book is from Clora’s perspective while she’s already dead. She ended her own life with poison in efforts to save her family from slavery; she attempted to take her children with her but failed.

The book changed me forever, because it taught me that I could feel the pain of a character that I never met. I learned to sympathize from reading this distressing but unalloyed story. Clora loved her children so much that she decided the only way for her kids to be free was to die. I cannot even fathom what it was like to be a slave, so I don’t even judge her. That’s what makes the story so incredibly special.

J. California Cooper created a character that I wish I could bring back from the dead, yet she had never even lived; however, she was real inside of my head. Although the book is a historical fiction, I’d bet my entire five dollars from my last top story that there once lived a slave similar to Clora.

Read this book if you’re an ungrateful, complaining American that needs to travel back in time to feel grateful for being born in today’s society.

It’s also a great choice for anyone who wants to know more about how slavery impacted African American families. Enslaved mothers in particular suffered when their owners would sell their children to other plantations.

Clora’s protective instinct for her children showed me that a mother’s love is truly unconditional, and most women will do whatever it takes to give their offspring the best possible opportunities at peace and happiness, even after death.

I cried the night I finished reading this spectacular novel. The author made the audience care about the well-being of these innocent children. It’s the first page turner I’ve ever been introduced to.

I remember the day my aunt handed me a copy and told me it was a book I had to read; she was right. She has the greatest taste in literature.

If you have family that you’d do anything for to see their smile, then this is definitely something you should grab from your local library.

(Warning: Have a box of Kleenex and your favorite ice cream near when you read it.)