Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Book Reports Bone Black Bone Black In the book Bone Black, Bell Hooks gives a vivid look into her childhood. She starts off by talking about a quilt that her mother gave her from her mother. She thinks that this is special because her mother gave it to her and not one of her other sisters. Then she goes into describing how the children in her family never knew that they were poor until they grew up. They liked the dolls that they played with and the food that they ate. They never wondered why they didn’t have the things that their white neighbors did have. You would seldomly hear them complain because they had to walk to school and the white kids rode the school bus. She thought that they had a pretty normal family. In the next few chapters she discusses how they were brought up to fear white people. The children in her family were always told that black people who resembled white people would live better in the world. Through her childhood she would learn that some of the benefits or being light in skin would be given to her. As Bell goes through her young life she learns to play the piano, that death was not something to be afraid of, and she eventually learned how to use a camera. Granted that everyone back then did not have cameras or picture boxes as they called them, so this was a big deal. The most influential person in her life was her grandmother. She loved going to her house when she was making wine, soap or butter. The children would always have the job of picking the grapes for the wine every week. Her grandmother taught her so much about God, love and she helped point her in the right direction in helping her find her own identity. As time went on she became more involved in church, and religious activities. She got baptized and saved at the church that she always attended. She grew to love the black church that she grew up mocking. The old lady that always sat in the front row made her realize how deep the roots of her church were. She began to find herself wanting to stay in the house to read instead of going out to play. She first started reading to escape from the problems of her daily life. She would read books about black history, religion and love. When she becomes old enough to date boys she begins to read books about pornography, not knowing that these books were not fit for a girl her age. Then she begins to pleasure herself in private, but after her sisters catch her she begins to feel ashamed and never does it again. When she goes away to college she joins the campus ministry. She thought that this would be a group that she would feel right at home in. Instead she feels more like an outcast she says, “Her soul is black like the inner would of a cave-bone black. Feeling so alone she tries to kill herself by jumping off a cliff, but one of the priest stops her. She begins to see someone about her problem of feeling lonely. He helped her see that her joy and acceptance was to express herself through stories and poems. Then Bell Hooks realizes that all her life she was meant to write. Bell Hooks intended to tell a story about a rebellious girl trying to find herself. She wants to form her own identity that is not like her other family members. Bell wants people to understand why and how she became the person that she is today, by giving the reader a personal look into her childhood. She achieves this very well. You get to see her personal thoughts and feelings through the stories that she tells. Hooks explains the way she feels about her family, marriage, and her religion. When she talks about different issues involving sex, boys, and relationships her religion dominates her ruling that she'll never get married or have sex, because it's wrong. As she begins to grow she lets you see how these feelings change. She begins to express her sexual feeling through masturbation, because she feels that to have sex is a sin. Later she realizes that any sexual act is a sin and she vows never to do it again. She opens her personal life to her readers every step of the way. Every chapter of this book tells another story of how she has become the person she is today. I would recommend this book to people, because it is very well written. There is no mystery and no romance, but it keeps you wanting to read more and more, just to see what happens to her next. Young adults will enjoy this book because they can relate it to the things that their parents may have went through as children. I know that when I was reading this I thought about the stories that my mom told me about her childhood. I would also recommend this book to people born around this time so that they can reminisce about the times that they had as children. I think that this is a book for all ages because it's a concrete book. She is telling the story of her childhood. It's not interesting because of the way that she wrote it or the words that she used. It is interesting because her childhood was interesting. Bibliography: Word Count: 959
Copyright © 2005 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved.