BBAW: Treasures from the 1970s

Today's Topic: Forgotten Treasure - Sure we’ve all read about Freedom and Mockingjay but we likely have a book we wish would get more attention by book bloggers, whether it’s a forgotten classic or under marketed contemporary fiction. This is your chance to tell the community why they should consider reading this book! (Details on the daily topics can be found at the BBAW website.)
There are two books that blew me away this year. Both were written in the 1970s (the decade in which I was born - what a coincidence!) and both deserve so much more attention than they are getting today.

Kindred, by Octavia Butler

This story examines the hot-button issues of power and race by taking a modern-day character and placing her in the pre-Civil War American South.  Dana, an 1970s African-American woman, finds herself living as a slave on a plantation where she is owned by her distant ancestor. The strength of the book is the way in which the reader comes to understand the horrors of slavery by watching Dana degenerate and begin to compromise in order to survive.  For more details you can check out my complete review here.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown

This non-fiction account of the destruction of the Native American tribes in the United States in the late 1800s is told from the tribes' point of view.  This book should be required reading in every American classroom and suggested reading for the rest of the world.  With heartbreaking simplicity it shows how a government can completely destroy a group of people.  If we don't understand history, how can we ever expect to do better in the future?  Although I read the original version, there is a new illustrated version of this book out now that is also very powerful.  You can read my complete review here if you are interested.



I'm looking forward to checking out the forgotten treasures that other bloggers have dug up!