Uncle Toms Cabin, who has read it?

[JitterbugPerfume]

I love old books,especially illustrated books . I am thinking seriously about buying it.

[MineralMan]

1. Decades ago.

[William769]

2. I read it back in middle school.

Thanks for bringing back the memories. I just may read it again.

[WingDinger]

3. Read portions, Didnt it actually involve freedom railroad, and not a suckup?

[Ozymanithrax]

4. I read it in 8th grade, 1966.

It was a good read.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. It is a classic, for many reasons.

If you can get an old copy with illustrations, at an affordable price, treat yourself. The social history value alone makes it a good buy.

[JitterbugPerfume]

6. somehow I missed this one

or maybe I had it read to me by a teacher in the dim long ago. When I was in elementary school it was a common practice for the teacher to read books aloud to the students.

I have no idea if they still do .

[sinkingfeeling]

7. We used to have a copy of it from way back. The illustrations were great. I read it when I was

about 10 years old. Now I wonder what happened to that book, 53 years later.

[JitterbugPerfume]

8. maybe I am about to buy it on Amazon?

I want the oldest copy I can find.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. I hope my 91 yr.-old mother still has it.

[JitterbugPerfume]

10. me too

I hope she has it!

[bigwillq]

11. I didn't like the style of writing.

So I never finished it.

[raccoon]

12. I read it in high school. Not the most riveting book I've ever read, fairly

readable, as I recall.

[Jim__]

13. I read it a long time ago, when I was young - n/t

[SheilaT]

14. I read it about ten or so years ago.

The NPR program Talk of the Nation did a bookclub of the air for a year or two, and one of the selections was Uncle Tom's Cabin. I decided I'd read it, expecting the book to be a slog. The first fifty pages were a bit slow going, and after that I literally could not put it down. I also got to be one of the on-air callers to discuss the book, which was totally cool.

I think the reason it is so powerful is that it's clear the author abhors slavery and wants it to end, but cannot imagine that ever happening. Every other book written since Emancipation, even if set before Emancipation, still contains the knowledge that slavery will come to and end. Uncle Tom's Cabin holds out no hope at all that it will end, and therein lies its power.

Uncle Tom himself is a man of deep Christian faith, and it sustains him no matter how terrible things are. I was in absolute awe of Tom's humanity and faith, and it's a real shame that in the African-American community the term uncle tom has become an insult. The original Uncle Tom was not a toady of any kind.

Also, there are scenes in the latter part of the book that seem to offer a distant hint of the Nazi Holocaust.

[sueh]

15. I read it about 20 years ago. and learned quite a bit from it.

I'm grateful to Harriet Beecher Stowe for writing it and I am equally grateful that this book was published.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. I read it when I was in junior high

The writing can be Victorian sentimental, but you can see why it stirred up anti-slavery sentiment with its accounts of sadistic masters and families being broken up. (Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in Cincinnati and heard first-hand accounts from escaped slaves.)

The term "Uncle Tom" became derogatory because the character Uncle Tom is so passive, no matter what happens to him.